LP-30's and B-24's to evacuate the personnel. By that time the Japanese 
 
had moved very far south and were operating against Java. Meanwhile Gen. 
 
Brett and Gen. Wavell had shifted operations to Java. 
 
When we got down to Darwin, there was word there for me to take the Inter-
 
ceptor Command on the East of Java. We operated there with P-40's. The 
 
British had Hurricanes.  After losing our airplanes there, we left and 
 
evacuated the 1st of March to Australia. Specifically, our airplanes were 
 
combated mainly with Navy 96 and Army 96 -- bomber and predominantly
 
fighters. There were not very many Hesserschmidts 109 and 110.
 
The comparison of Japanese performance is significant -- their Zero Fighter 
 
weighs around 4,045  pounds, has a 14 cylinder (Pratt Whitney) engine, very 
 
high rate of climb -- 4,500 feet a minute, ceiling around 30,000 feet and 
 
outmaneuvers anything we have. It has no armor plate and sacrifices self-
 
sealing tanks, but the P-40 outruns the Zero by about 25 m.p.h. Tactics
 
were more or less based on these facts.
 
We did not attempt to combat their fighters, for our mission was to protect 
 
the Navy at Soerabajao We started off with around 31 P-40's -- about 24 of 
 
which were in commission until our supply line was cut down through the 
 
Eastern Indies. We slowly lost airplanes after that until the first of 
 
March, although we were operating from a hidden airdrome, using all con-
 
cealment possible.
 
The Japanese did not find our drome until the 28th of February, although the 
 
first major attack came into Soerabaja about the middle of February, being 
 
sent in unescorted by fighters. We were  able to get the pursuit up about 
 
26,000 feet and shot down 9 out of 27 planes. More probably went down, but 
 
9 were confirmed.
 
After this the Japanese sent in their bombardment planes at 27,000 to 30,000 
 
feet. The P-40 cannot get that high-- not much over 26,000. We were
 
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