[spud]

Basically, when fresh and new, the japanese Munda airfield would have been completely covered with palm trees. US photo recon found them starting November 20th, 1942. On Dec 3 they returned and it was already looking like an airfield. By the 9th, it was mostly done, but there were still palms here and there in the middle of the runway and taxiways (intentional to break up the shape from the air). The 9th is the date of the first US attack. By 30 March, 1943, it looked like the moon and was useless as an airfield from that point on until the CBs got a hold of it. Sometimes japanese planes would make emergency landings there, but unless the plane was OK to fly out by itself, they'd likely never leave.

In the first 5 weeks of the New Georgia campaign alone, 1.9 million pounds of bombs was dropped on Munda.

I see Munda primarily as a target area

tater