By the start of the war Bataan Field consisted of one runway (NW-SE), hacked out of the jungle by Army engineers.

Elements of Company C, 803rd Engineers (Aviation) (Separate) arrived at the field on Christmas Day, 1941, to continue expanding and repairing the runway and, in conjunction with personnel of the Far East Air Force (FEAF), building revetments for aircraft.

Sources: Memo [Col.] H[enry] H. S[tickney] to G-4, [Philippine Department], October 14, 1941, Subject: Weekly Report of Department Engineers Construction, Casey Files; Office of the Department Engineer (ODE), Construction Progress Report for Semi-Monthly Period Ending November 15, 1941; CMSGT Clarence Kinser, Interviews, March 26 and May 4, 1999; Letter, Blair Robinette to William Bartsch, February 24, 1983; Statement (draft), Maj. Gen. Hugh J. Casey, n.d., Subject: Airdrome Construction in the Philippines, [October 8, 1941 – May 6, 1942] p. 5, Casey Files, Folder 1; Fertig, Guerrillero, p. 73; William Bartsch, Doomed from the Start, p. 222, 257.

There, the planes were maintained by enlisted men and flown by pilots selected from the entire Group, as the squadrons were folded into one unit.

[1] Initial operations of the 24th from Bataan Field consisted of an interception mission against a Japanese bomb attack on Corregidor on 4 January.

By 26 January, attrition had reduced the force of P-40s at Bataan to seven, and the planes were loaded with fragmentation bombs for an attack on the occupied Nichols and Nielson Fields near Manila.

Intelligence reported that the raid was successful, with at least 37 Japanese aircraft destroyed on the ground, along with gasoline and oil drums set on fire.

[1] On 1 February, four P-40s attacked a Japanese landing party at Agaloma[2] Point which had overrun beach defense forces.

The four P-40s of the group and a Philippines Air Corps Seversky P-35 would be joined by the four squadron P-40s that were still on Mindanao, and another three P-40s which had been shipped up from Australia.

On 10 April the planned bombardment mission against Japanese forces on Bataan was carried out, concentrating on Legazpi, Cebu, Iloilo and Davao.

During this time, the fighters performed reconnaissance throughout the area and made a staffing attack on Davao, destroying several enemy aircraft on the ground and two in the air.