Dolphinstriker,
Some progress at last !! And delivered without a personal insult too. There is hope for you yet !
I must admit, with apologies, to missing the information that you just posted about full aircrews being on-board those B-17s afterall.
I sourced page #20 of that same URL after a google search took me there way back for my posting #166 but I never realized that some of the pages between 1 and 19 were also there for preview. Certainly page 20 mentions bomb bay fuel tanks being carried in the two B-17s that landed at Haleiwa Field. I provided this data previously so why do you only acknowledge those facts at this late date ?
You wrote, "It's not clear whether the ammo was denied because of the weight, or the ordnance officer just didn't want to issue any. The crews apparently felt they could make it with the ammo aboard. The bombardier of one plane is quoted as saying that had they known they were going to be in a shooting war, they would have had plenty of ammo aboard." but you chose to mislead our readers by ignoring page #12 of our source which clearly states the reasoning."The decision to send the planes without ammunition came from General Arnold. He wrote, "Somebody had to weigh ... the certainty of arriving there by providing sufficient gasoline against the probability of their using their machine guns and not getting there by carrying extra ammunition." Arnold firmly believed that the airmen would run into trouble "somewhere on the other side of Hawaii"." Indeed my own experience indicates that 100 rounds of belted .50 cal. mg ammunition in a metal storage can weighs in at about 74 lbs. The reason that I say "about" is that my display can is filled with inert ammunition that has no powder inside. Since a B-17E carried 8x.50 cal. and 1x.30 cal , providing even a bare minimum 200 rounds per gun would add approximately 8x2x74 + 1x2x55 = 1294 lbs which would rob the aircraft of some 215 gallons of fuel. I don't know what a typical combat load of mg ammunition was for a Pacific B-17 but I have read of B-17s based in Britain taking off with 1,000 rounds per mg, on board. I do not believe that a B-17C/D/E so loaded would have reached Oahu from San Francisco.
Page #19 of our source also tells the tale of the golf course B-17. "Using full power, Bostrom was able to outrun his pursuers but found that he was nearly out of gas. "We knew we'd better land or we never would and after spotting a golf course, succeeded in landing in the fairway." So, no radioed orders as you tried to suggest, just a lack of gas that caused him to put down fast, anywhere he could.
This short passage highlights the wisdom (or perhaps luck) of General Arnold versus that of the "gung-ho" B-17 crewmen. It is apparent that the fuel reserve margin was so SLIM on this ferry flight that even a few minutes of high speed combat (escape) flight over Oahu were enough to use up most of it. Had that aircraft carried 200 mg rounds per gun it would have had about 215 gallons LESS fuel on-board and may not have made the golf course, or any runway for that matter One can only speculate about the (unlikely) ability of any similarly tasked B-17 to slip past a standing Zero CAP around Hawaii in the event that the Japanese were to attempt an invasion. Fuel would be absolutely CRITICAL in every such flight and even a slightly stronger headwind could make the difference between landing on Oahu or drifting in a liferaft. Certainly one would not expect to see the massed "bomber box" formations so prevalent in Europe at the time since getting so organized would use up far too much precious fuel. A series of single, fuel starved B-17s trying to slip in to Oahu airfileds one-by-one would be a far more likly scenario and one in which groups of CAP Zeros could treat each lone B-17 quite badly since there would be no massed .50 cal mg gunfire from a "bomber box" to drive them back. And pleae remember that the B-17C/D aircraft had no tail gun at all.
Page #14 of the source is also interesting as in presents, "The flight to Hawaii was uneventful as each B-17 flew alone through the night."Each crew was on its own"." which also clearly indicates just how critical the fuel supply was. NO fuel at all was wasted by any aircraft in orbiting at San Francisco while awaiting the forming up of a group. Each plane just took off and headed out alone for a 13 hour, 2,400 mile flight to Oahu at a low (and fuel economical) average cruising speed of 185 mph.
Some progress at last !! And delivered without a personal insult too. There is hope for you yet !
I must admit, with apologies, to missing the information that you just posted about full aircrews being on-board those B-17s afterall.
I sourced page #20 of that same URL after a google search took me there way back for my posting #166 but I never realized that some of the pages between 1 and 19 were also there for preview. Certainly page 20 mentions bomb bay fuel tanks being carried in the two B-17s that landed at Haleiwa Field. I provided this data previously so why do you only acknowledge those facts at this late date ?
You wrote, "It's not clear whether the ammo was denied because of the weight, or the ordnance officer just didn't want to issue any. The crews apparently felt they could make it with the ammo aboard. The bombardier of one plane is quoted as saying that had they known they were going to be in a shooting war, they would have had plenty of ammo aboard." but you chose to mislead our readers by ignoring page #12 of our source which clearly states the reasoning."The decision to send the planes without ammunition came from General Arnold. He wrote, "Somebody had to weigh ... the certainty of arriving there by providing sufficient gasoline against the probability of their using their machine guns and not getting there by carrying extra ammunition." Arnold firmly believed that the airmen would run into trouble "somewhere on the other side of Hawaii"." Indeed my own experience indicates that 100 rounds of belted .50 cal. mg ammunition in a metal storage can weighs in at about 74 lbs. The reason that I say "about" is that my display can is filled with inert ammunition that has no powder inside. Since a B-17E carried 8x.50 cal. and 1x.30 cal , providing even a bare minimum 200 rounds per gun would add approximately 8x2x74 + 1x2x55 = 1294 lbs which would rob the aircraft of some 215 gallons of fuel. I don't know what a typical combat load of mg ammunition was for a Pacific B-17 but I have read of B-17s based in Britain taking off with 1,000 rounds per mg, on board. I do not believe that a B-17C/D/E so loaded would have reached Oahu from San Francisco.
Page #19 of our source also tells the tale of the golf course B-17. "Using full power, Bostrom was able to outrun his pursuers but found that he was nearly out of gas. "We knew we'd better land or we never would and after spotting a golf course, succeeded in landing in the fairway." So, no radioed orders as you tried to suggest, just a lack of gas that caused him to put down fast, anywhere he could.
This short passage highlights the wisdom (or perhaps luck) of General Arnold versus that of the "gung-ho" B-17 crewmen. It is apparent that the fuel reserve margin was so SLIM on this ferry flight that even a few minutes of high speed combat (escape) flight over Oahu were enough to use up most of it. Had that aircraft carried 200 mg rounds per gun it would have had about 215 gallons LESS fuel on-board and may not have made the golf course, or any runway for that matter One can only speculate about the (unlikely) ability of any similarly tasked B-17 to slip past a standing Zero CAP around Hawaii in the event that the Japanese were to attempt an invasion. Fuel would be absolutely CRITICAL in every such flight and even a slightly stronger headwind could make the difference between landing on Oahu or drifting in a liferaft. Certainly one would not expect to see the massed "bomber box" formations so prevalent in Europe at the time since getting so organized would use up far too much precious fuel. A series of single, fuel starved B-17s trying to slip in to Oahu airfileds one-by-one would be a far more likly scenario and one in which groups of CAP Zeros could treat each lone B-17 quite badly since there would be no massed .50 cal mg gunfire from a "bomber box" to drive them back. And pleae remember that the B-17C/D aircraft had no tail gun at all.
Page #14 of the source is also interesting as in presents, "The flight to Hawaii was uneventful as each B-17 flew alone through the night."Each crew was on its own"." which also clearly indicates just how critical the fuel supply was. NO fuel at all was wasted by any aircraft in orbiting at San Francisco while awaiting the forming up of a group. Each plane just took off and headed out alone for a 13 hour, 2,400 mile flight to Oahu at a low (and fuel economical) average cruising speed of 185 mph.