10:26am. The morning of August 8th, 1942. Bouganville. The mouth of "The Slot..." Seaplanes! The crew of the RAAF Hudson knew nothing about the Guadalcanal operation. They were told to expect Allied shipping "...in the area." Having sighted a fast travelling force heading south-west off the east coast of Bouganville, their cautious "letter of the day" challenge was quickly met with "AA" - (hint: the Japanese were NOT using Aldis Lamps). Lots of puffy flak appeared, followed by the IJN's unambiguous "digit of the day" - "Zeroes" leaving their catapaults... Yes... there had to be seaplanes in this somewhere, eh? The Hudson crew broke radio-silence to report what they thought they saw and high-tailed it before the floatplanes could climb and silence them... "Three cruisers, three destroyers, two seaplane tenders or gunboats..." Their base at Milne Bay, far away on the tail of New Guinea, did not respond. Having crossed back over Bouganville the aircrew paused long enough to scare the hell out of the crew of two Japanese submarines who were just asking to be bombed and then headed on back to Milne Bay. They were debriefed immediately they landed at 12:42pm. The allied commanders at Guadalcanal, if they didn't recieve the transmission directly that morning, certainly heard about the sighting later that afternoon/night via the Allies' killingly ponderous "intel" grapevine... and to a man failed to appreciate its significance. Mostly everyone seemed convinced that a seaplane unit was on the move. There were seaplanes coming all right... but its what they were riding upon down "the Slot" that was the problem... info: www.ww2pacific.com/hudsonrep.html Rendered in Vue 8 Esprit assets: Neiwils' Hudson with its RAAF texture. (ShareCG)