XX Bomber Command Shoutout
I have recently learned that the U.S. Army Air Force’s XX Bomber Command also attacked Japanese military installations on Formosa during the time the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 38 was attacking Formosa, 9-17 October 1944.
That was a surprise to me, as I’ve read numerous books, articles, etc., regarding the U.S. Navy’s actions against the Japanese. Of course, those were naval histories, not Army Air Force histories.
However, one of my goals for my book is to put readers in the big picture of what was happening at various points in the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) during World War II. For example, my book centers around the 19 March 1945 attack on USS Franklin. The ship was part of Task Force 58, tasked with destroying Japanese air and naval assets in southern Japan prior to the invasion of Okinawa. So far, I have yet to read a book about the actions on board Franklin that day that also mentions the first firebombing of Tokyo by General Curtis Lemay and the XX Bomber Command nine days earlier.
Just after midnight on 10 March, almost 300 B-29s dropped incendiaries that would ignite and destroy 16 square miles of Tokyo, killing more than 100,000 people, mainly civilians. Do you think the Japanese attacking Task Force 58 and Franklin nine days later might have had their resolve stiffened by seeing the results of that attack? I cannot yet answer that question, but I will research it.
XX Bomber Command Strikes Formosa
Let’s go back to October 1944. Admiral Halsey, then in command of the Third Fleet, had taken Task Force 38 off the shore of Formosa. Many naval historians have covered that battle, which was, up until the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest air-sea battle to date.
According to historian Milan N. Vego, in his book The Battle For Leyte, 1944: Allied and Japanese Plans, Preparations, and Execution, the XX Bomber Command and the XIV Army Air Force sent 110 B-29s to attack targets in the Takao area of Formosa on 13 October.
These bombings were followed the next day by 130 B-29s attacking targets on Formosa, the Pescadores Islands, and China. Sixty bombers attacked an aircraft assembly plant, the Heito airfield, and port facilities.
The next day, XX Bomber Command attacked targets on both Formosa and the port of Amoy on mainland China.
Naval histories give Halsey’s fleet credit for the damage done to the Japanese on Formosa and nearby islands. They’ll need to share some of the credit with General Curtis Lemay’s XX Bomber Command and the XIV Army Air Force.
Did you arrive here via a search engine? I am the author of the forthcoming book Heroes By The Hundreds: The Story of the USS Franklin (CV-13). In addition to writing about the bravery of the crews that saved her, I will discuss the lessons we can learn in leadership and decision-making, and the changes the US Navy made because of those lessons.
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-Glenn
