Bridge watchstanders have to be lashed to the conning tower to prevent them from flying into the ocean. Inside, condensation drips off cold hulls to drench crewmen. The 11th Air Force has only four heavy four-engine bombers. The squadrons of Canadian and American P-40 fighters have never seen combat. The runways are made of perforated steel matting and unpaved, and bounce landing fighters 30 feet in the air.
Pilots fuel their own planes from drums, sleep in rude huts and bedrolls, and freeze.
Boss of the 11th Fighter Squadron is Major Jack Chennault, son of Claire Chennault of Flying Tiger fame. Jack's pilots paint snarling tiger faces on their P-40s. When the Royal Canadian Air Force's 115th Fighter Squadron lands at Alaska's Annette Island, a US Customs officer refuses to let the pilots out of their planes until they pay duty on their arms and equipment. It takes a message from Secretary of State Cordell Hull granting the Canadians Distinguished Foreign Visitor status to end this idiocy. On Guadalcanal, coastwatcher Martin Clemens relieves the tension with target practice with his .22, and reading his volumes of Shakespeare.