The Far East Air Force (FEAF) was the military aviation organization of the United States Army in the Philippines just prior to and at the beginning of World War II. Formed on 16 November 1941, FEAF was the predecessor of the Fifth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces and the United States Air Force.

Initially the Far East Air Force also included aircraft and personnel of the Philippine Army Air Corps. Outnumbered operationally more than three-to-one by aircraft of the Japanese Navy and Army, FEAF was largely destroyed during the Philippines Campaign of 1941–42. When 14 surviving B-17 Flying Fortresses and 143 personnel of the heavy bombardment force were withdrawn from Mindanao to Darwin, Australia in the third week of December 1941, Headquarters FEAF followed it within days. The B-17s were the only combat aircraft of the FEAF to escape capture or destruction.Two B-18s used as transports and the Philippine Air Depot C-39, used to evacuate personnel from Mindanao in April 1942, also escaped.

The FEAF, with only 16 Curtiss P-40s and 4 Seversky P-35 fighters remaining of its original combat force, was broken up as an air organization and moved by units into Bataan 24–25 December. 49 of the original 165 pursuit pilots of FEAF's 24th Pursuit Group were also evacuated during the campaign, but of non-flying personnel, only one of 27 officers and 16 wounded enlisted men escaped the Philippines. Nearly all ground and flying personnel were employed as infantry at some point during their time on Bataan, where most surrendered on 9 April 1942.

The surviving personnel and a small number of aircraft received from the United States were re-organized in Australia in January 1942, and on 5 February 1942 redesignated as "5 Air Force". With most of its aircraft based in Java, the FEAF was nearly destroyed a second time trying to stem the tide of Japanese advances southward.

1912–1941

Philippine Department Air Force The Philippine Department Air Force was formed on 6 May 1941AFHRA's fact sheet for the Fifth Air Force gives the date, in error, as 20 September 1941. Craven and Cate's date (cited from the monograph AAF Reference History No. 11, "Army Air Action in the Philippines and Netherlands East Indies, 1941-42", p.6-10 and reissued as AAF Historical Study No. 34) of 6 May coincides with the assignment of a general officer to command the PDAF. 20 September 1941 is possibly the date that the Army endorsed the Philippine Department's general order organizing the PDAF. Whatever the source of AFHRA's error, by 20 September its name had already been changed to "Air Force, USSAFFE" for a month. (Williams p. 5) as the War Department hastily reversed course and attempted to upgrade its air defenses in the Philippines. The general officer requested by Philippine Department head Maj. Gen. George Grunert arrived on 4 May in the person of Brig. Gen. Henry B. Clagett , who had just completed a three-week air defense course taught at Mitchel Field, New York, to familiarize him with the concepts of integrating Signal Corps radars, radio communications, and interceptor forces.The general was known in the service as "Sue" Clagett. A West Point graduate in the class ahead of Chief of Air Corps Major General Henry H. Arnold, he had been a career infantry officer until switching to the Air Service in mid-career during World War I. He had never served in nor commanded troops in combat. Clagett had succeeded Arnold in command of the GHQ Air Force 1st Wing in 1936 after holding a number of Air Corps Training Center commands, which led to his promotion to brigadier general in a wave of Air Corps expansion promotions in October 1940. When selected to command the new PDAF he had been wing commander of the newly-created 6th Pursuit Wing less than three months. His selection by the War Department had come at a time when Arnold was in the dog house with President Roosevelt for vociferously criticizing foreign sales of aircraft at the expense of the Air Corps and in England, struggling to keep from being involuntarily retired. Edmunds described Clagett as "an old-line officer of uncertain health, with a long record of peacetime service and a prodigious knowledge of regulations, which had induced conservative habits of thought and a certain inflexibility of imagination." (Edmunds, p. 19) His poor health, reputation for drinking and possibly his selection by the War Department without input from Arnold ultimately contributed to the AAF chief relieving him from command after just five months. (Miller) Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall had also given Clagett a top-secret mission to go to China in mid-May for a month of observation and assessment of Japanese tactics.

The PDAF's only major unit, the 4th Composite Group, consisted of five squadrons based at two grass fields: Clark and Nichols. A third airfield, Nielson Field, lacked facilities and was used primarily as an administrative strip for nearby Fort McKinley. An isolated sod auxiliary strip at Iba on the west coast was used for gunnery training. PDAF's materiel was centrally located in the Philippine Air Depot at Nichols Field, easily targeted from the air and highly inflammable. The only existing antiaircraft defenses were a single battery of four 3-inch gun M1903 guns and a searchlight platoon at Fort Wint at the entrance to Subic Bay, which would only be marginally reinforced in September.

In May 1941 its aircraft situation was only marginally better than a year before: only 22 P-26 fighters, 12 "utterly obsolete, ancient, vulnerable as pumpkins" B-10s, the 56 P-35As diverted from the sale to Sweden, 18 Douglas B-18 Bolos still in crates after disassembly and shipment from the Hawaiian Department in March, nine North American A-27s impressed from a foreign sales consignment,"A-27" was the Air Corps designation for T-6 Texan trainers equipped with bomb racks and a gun for sale to Siam. The consignment had been held on the docks in Manila to keep them from being captured and used by the Japanese after the occupation of Indochina in 1940. The PDAF used them as an instrument trainer for the pilots fresh out of pilot training. several Douglas C-39 transports, and a small number of varied observation planes.The instrumentation for the P-35s was in Swedish and for the A-27s in Thai, and both were calibrated in the metric system rather than United States customary units. (8 December, p. 33, Edmunds p. 72) Its only modern aircraft were 31 Curtiss P-40B fighters earmarked for the 20th Pursuit Squadron. Although delivered in mid-May, they were not operational for lack of antifreeze engine coolant. PDAF Headquarters was located at Fort Santiago near Manila; the majority of the planes were at either Clark or Nichols. Except for one small commercial firm in Manila,The plant in Manila produced oxygen for Navy use in welding. no oxygen-producing plants existed in the Philippines, severely limiting the service ceiling of all aircraft, but particularly the fighters.Six oxygen-producing plants were among new equipment allocated to FEAF. They were en route by sea when war broke out and diverted to Australia. (Edmunds, p. 38)

Clagett immediately undertook an administrative "shakeup" of the existing organization. He marginalized Col. Harrison H. C. Richards, the Philippine Department Air Officer, relieved Col. Lawrence S. Churchill of command of the 4th Composite Group (but retained him in the position of base commander of Nichols Field), created new channels of command, and because of a lack of qualified staff officers, drew senior (but administratively untrained) officers from the squadrons to fill his staff. The last move further aggravated a problem created when experienced pilots of both the 17th and 20th squadrons had been transferred to augment the understrength 4th Group. A lack of cohesion and confidence in command resulted that continued into the war.The 4th CG, for example, had three commanders between May and August, then was dissolved. Richards and Churchill both responded with "obstructionist tactics" that exacerbated the already poor command situation.

In July, the P-40s finally became operational, but Nichols Field was then closed to replace its east-west runway with one made of concrete, and to regrade the north-south runway, both measures taken to correct drainage deficiencies that made the field virtually inoperable in the wet season May through October. On the morning of 2 July (ironically, delayed five days by a typhoon),The pursuit squadrons, unable to move their aircraft, were forced to remove propellers, lower the aircraft to the ground with their landing gear raised, then tie down and weight the wings with sandbags to prevent their being lifted by the high winds. all three fighter squadrons transferred the FEAF's 39 P-35s and 20 P-26s to Clark and Iba, where the 17th Pursuit Squadron moved for gunnery training. Construction of two new fields intended to support heavy bomber operations, at Rosales on the Lingayen Plain and Del Carmen near Clark Field, proceeded slowly.

On 26 July 1941, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was recalled to active duty from retirement and the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) was created by the War Department to reorganize the defenses of the Philippines against a Japanese invasion. The PDAF was renamed Air Force, USAFFE on 4 August 1941,, USAFFE General Order No. 4. and incorporated into its ranks the newly inducted Philippine Army Air Corps on 15 August 1941. Its headquarters moved to Nielson Field, and although the move had been made to increase the urgency of expanding air capabilities, precious time had been lost that was never re-gained.

Creation of the FEAF

Pre-war upgrades and expansion In July 1941, Chief of the Army Air Forces, Major General Henry H. Arnold, allocated 340 heavy bombers (not yet manufactured) and 260 modern fighter planes for future reinforcement of the Far East Air Force. Work at Nichols continued slowly in the second half of the year, but the 17th PS was forced to return there to accommodate the planned arrival of the heavy bombers, and the accident rate, already high, increased.