The field, he noted, was almost empty of planes. Evidently they had taken off right after his radioed report. The Japs would catch plenty of grief before darkness shut down, but the real pay-off would be tomorrow. By that time Allied airfields from all over eastern New Guinea as well as Australia and the Solomons would be sending planes to the attack. The Japs would meet them with swarms of their own land-based fighters. A gigantic air-and-sea battle would be on, with the outcome impossible to guess.