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The 68th Pursuit Squadron - 347 Fighter Group 13th Army Air Force - Guadalcanal 1942 to 1943

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Operation Watch Tower (Shoe String to the men who lived it) was nick named that for a good reason. The American invasion of Guadalcanal in August 1942 was put together hastily to take the airfield and stop the Japanese from cutting the supply lines to Australia. All forces not tied to the defense of Port Morseby in New Guinea were thrown into the breech. The invasion was often at risk as the Japanese owned the seas and pounded the airfield with naval gunfire. The Marines controlled the airstrip permiter and not much else. The island waters became a grave yard for many Allied warships and their crews. Like the defenders of Morseby the 68th flew P40's and P-39's which were no match for the Japanese Navy Zeroes. It was their tactics and courage that won the day in the battles of attrition that lay ahead.

With thanks to Sergeant Chester V Novak who served as a crew and line chief in the 68th during 1942 and 43 I hope to soon have a pair of profiles representing the 13th AAF in the pivotal battle for the South West Pacific.

I regret to report that Chet has passed on last December 1st before we could complete his profile.

The 68th Pursuit Squadron was formed at Selfridge Field Michigan in January 1941. The unit transferred to Harding Field in Baton Rouge Louisiana in September and trained on the P-40, P-43, P-36 and P-35's

that were available. With the attack on Pearl Harbor it was one of the first units rushed to defend Australia. Shipping out on February 17th from San Francisco they arrived in Brisbane Australia on March 8th and set up a camp on the city horse track. Their 25, P40-E KittyHawks were assembled and they were assigned to the Island of Tonga to defend the shipping lanes. It was relatively quiet there and they practices dive bombing and gunnery on their patrols of the sea lanes. In October 1942 they transferred to New Caledonia and joined the 67th, 70th and 339th Fighter Squadrons to form the 347th Fighter Group. As the battle for Guadalcanal was still raging they were attached to the 1st Marine Division to defend the island. The arrived in November just intme to be shelled by apanese battleships offshore. Severla men were killed in the attack. In fighter escort for B-17s on January 15th they shot down 8 biplane float fighters that attacked and in the following days destoyed 5 more. It was here that the unit won its Presenditial Unit citation