Target: Rabaul (19 page)

The details were up to Whitehead and the staffs of the bomber and fighter commands, who came up with a two-part plan. It would commence with a predawn raid by the heavies of the 43rd and 90th Bomb Groups, followed by low-level attacks at daybreak by squadrons of B-25 strafers. Equipped with droppable auxiliary fuel tanks, the modified B-25s had the range to reach the distant target.

A Japanese reconnaissance plane lingered over Tsili-Tsili on the morning of August 14, putting the Allies on alert. That evening, P-39 Airacobras of the 40th Fighter Squadron, 35th Fighter Group, arrived for defense. Much maligned during the first year of the Pacific war, primarily due to its lack of an efficient turbo-supercharger, the Airacobra had undergone improvements. The 35th had recently received P-39Ns, which had a larger propeller and reduced armor, giving the fighter a better rate of climb. Whitehead described the enhancements as “very
popular” among the pilots, but in truth, few would have passed up an opportunity to switch to P-38s.

The advance of P-39s to Tsili-Tsili occurred none too soon. While V Bomber Command held off the strike on Wewak, presumably to wait for favorable weather, Lt. Gen. Teramoto launched a preemptive raid. Thirty-four Ki-43 Oscars from two regiments took off from Wewak on August 15, and rendezvoused with seven Type 99 light bombers (Kawasaki Ki-48s, Allied codename “Lily”) of the 208th Flying Regiment. Under an eight-tenths cloud layer at eleven thousand feet, the Japanese got close to Tsili-Tsili without detection. Radar missed them, as did a squadron of P-38s from Port Moresby patrolling above the clouds.

Down below, a church service was in progress. The army engineers had not only built two runways in record time, but they’d put up several essential structures, including a chapel. And although it was a Sunday, the pace of C-47 deliveries continued unabated. A dozen transports had just landed and were unloading. Twelve others, some carrying headquarters staff and ground echelon personnel of the 35th Fighter Group, circled the landing pattern.

Shortly after 0900, the incoming raid was detected. By that time, the Japanese bombers were only a mile away.

Also orbiting the airdrome were twelve P-39s of the 41st Fighter Squadron/35th Fighter Group, providing cover for the transports. Spotting the attackers, which they both miscounted and misidentified as “nine medium bombers (Sallys) … at 10,000 feet,” the Airacobra pilots engaged the Ki-48s over the airdrome.
^*
Committed to their bomb runs, the Lilys took no evasive action.

In the landing pattern, fear gripped the men aboard the twelve C-47s. Low and slow, with wheels and flaps lowered in preparation for landing, the transports were defenseless. The passengers, mostly noncombatant personnel, could only watch as the attack unfolded around them. Just as the first bombs began exploding on the field, the lead transport touched down unharmed. The other eleven scattered in all directions over the treetops.

High above, the Oscars lagged behind the seven bombers. Too late, they charged in to break up the intercepting Airacobras. Captain Shigeki Namba, leading one of the cover elements, later lamented that “one by one the Ki-48s were shot down in flames.”

Two of the doomed bomber crews attempted a
taiatari
, or suicide dive. Literally translated as “body crashing,”
taiatari
was the honorable choice for a crew whose plane was crippled over the target. Bailing out and becoming a prisoner, akin to surrendering, was anathema to those who subscribed to the Bushido philosophy of an honorable death in combat. Fliers who deliberately chose to crash into an enemy ship, plane, or structure were therefore hailed as heroes in Japan. On this day, at least one
taiatari
succeeded: a falling bomber smashed directly into the chapel, killing the chaplain and six or seven men inside.

Radio communications with the P-38s patrolling overhead failed, so the Lightnings never joined the ensuing fight between the Oscars and approximately thirty P-39s, some of which scrambled aloft from Tsili-Tsili. When the dust settled, the 35th Fighter Group claimed fourteen “confirmed” victories. Some were duplicates, as only seven Ki-48s participated. According to captured diaries and postwar statements, none of the Lilys returned to base. Two bombers either fell or crash-landed during the long trip home, as five crash sites were found within close proximity of Tsili-Tsili.

The 35th lost four P-39s, all from the 41st Fighter Squadron. Two pilots bailed out and were quickly recovered, one crash-landed on the airstrip without injury, and the fourth was found dead in the wreckage of his Airacobra. Oscars also shot down one of the C-47s, which carried six passengers and crew. All either perished when it crashed on the airdrome, or died later of wounds. A second C-47, perhaps badly damaged, disappeared somewhere in the mountains with nine souls aboard. At the airdrome, a total of twelve personnel had been killed on the ground, bringing the Allied death toll to almost thirty.

The Japanese had inflicted casualties but failed to destroy the airdrome. No serious damage was done except to the chapel, yet the returning Japanese, perhaps to honor the Ki-48 crews, reported that the airdrome had been badly damaged. In addition, the two Oscar regiments claimed a total of eighteen American fighters—more than four times the actual losses—along with “three or four” transports. The effort had cost the Japanese, by their own admission, a total of seven bombers and three fighters.

Teramoto launched a follow-up raid the next afternoon, August 16. The airlift routine at Tsili-Tsili hadn’t skipped a beat, with forty-eight C-47s unloaded that morning and another forty-seven in the early afternoon. About half of the second group had just taken off for the return flight to Port Moresby when the radar crew picked up a large plot to the northwest, toward Garoka. Once again, American fighters were overhead. Thirteen P-38s of the newly arrived 431st Fighter Squadron/475th Fighter Group and two squadrons of P-47 Thunderbolts from the even newer 348th Fighter Group provided cover for the troop carriers. All three squadrons tangled with the enemy planes, estimated by the Allies as sixteen bombers escorted by fifteen fighters. The Japanese reported sending thirty-three fighters and only three bombers.

The P-38s fared well, perhaps because the pilots of the 431st claimed an excessive number of kills. A situation report from Whitehead on the afternoon of the fight noted a tally of eight Japanese fighters and two bombers destroyed, with no losses among the P-38s. Part of his assessment was true—the squadron got away clean with only two Lightnings damaged—but somehow two additional fighter kills were awarded back at Port Moresby, giving the 431st a total of twelve victories. The Japanese admitted the loss of three fighters.

Meanwhile, the Pacific debut of the P-47 Thunderbolt resulted in the reported downing of three enemy fighters—the exact number of fighters the Japanese
admitted to losing that day. On the debit side, 2nd Lt. Leonard G. Leighton of the 341st Fighter Squadron made the rookie mistake of fixating on an Oscar and firing continuously, which left the door open. Another Oscar jumped Leighton from behind and sent him crashing into the jungle. Several days later a patrol finally reached the remote site on foot. They decided to bury Leighton next to his plane.

Leighton was the only American shot down that afternoon, which brought the losses on the American side to seven aircraft over two days. Back at Wewak, the 24th and 59th Flying Regiments defied credibility by claiming a two-day total of
thirty-nine
Allied planes. They also reported Tsili-Tsili airdrome as destroyed. Buying into the exaggerations, senior staff officers arrived from Rabaul to present awards and conduct a ceremonial inspection.

The Japanese had confirmed Kenney’s disdain for their habitual poor planning. Teramoto had put up piecemeal attacks against Tsili-Tsili instead of wielding the powerful forces available to him. Among the nearly two hundred planes on hand were two regiments of Type 99 light bombers and a regiment of Type 97 heavy bombers—a combined force of more than ninety planes. Yet he had sent only seven light bombers on the first attack and fifteen on the second, leaving more than thirty heavy bombers on the ground. Those aircraft, parked in revetments, were a menace to nobody.

Even more critical was Teramoto’s mistaken belief that his forces had destroyed the forward Allied airfield. Lulled by a false sense of security, he thought his stronghold was safe from attack. But Teramoto was in for a nasty surprise—and a lesson in air power.

OVER A SPAN of three hours beginning at 2100 on August 16, thick roils of dust billowed from the runways at Jackson Field and Ward’s Strip as twelve B-17s and thirty-seven B-24s roared aloft. Each of the eight squadrons of the 43rd and 90th Bomb Groups had provided at least six aircraft for the mission, an effort unlike any seen before at Port Moresby. Gathering loosely by squadron, the bombers headed for Wewak, 480 miles to the north-northwest. Their route was indirect, however, taking the bombers north to the Huon Gulf, where they turned left and followed the coastline to the target. This avoided the highest peaks of the Owen Stanley Mountains, but added another seventy miles to the distance.

Assigned by squadrons to hit all four airdromes at Wewak, the heavies carried various types of ordnance. The lead B-24 from each of the Liberator-equipped squadrons flew with hundreds of four-pound incendiaries. The devices would hopefully start numerous fires around the target, lighting the way for the bombardiers in the trailing ships. The rest of the B-24s, along with all of the B-17s, carried loads of twenty-pound fragmentation bombs.

Much had changed since a year earlier. Back then, a mission was considered successful if three or four planes reached the target. This night, only one aircraft—a 90th Bomb Group B-24—turned back due to mechanical difficulties. The weather
cooperated, and the first bombers reached the target soon after midnight. For the next three hours, the airdromes were peppered with thousands of small-order explosions. Six B-17s from the 63rd Bomb Squadron and a few from the 65th dropped fragmentation clusters on Dagua airdrome, as did the B-24s of the 64th Bomb Squadron, while the Liberators of the 403rd and a few B-17s attacked But. Although the crews were “reasonably” confident of accurate delivery, the explosions were difficult to see, unlike the blasts made by conventional five-hundred- or thousand-pound general purpose bombs. Nonetheless, the attack ignited one large fire and two smaller blazes. Antiaircraft fire, described as moderate and inaccurate, caused only a few shrapnel holes in two Fortresses.

The only other opposition for the B-17s was a series of attacks by a so-called “night fighter,” probably a Ki-45 of the 13th Flying Regiment. First Lieutenant John C. Glyer’s crew, in a B-17 of the 63rd Bomb Squadron, was caught in searchlights at the beginning of the bomb run and attacked from behind by a twin-engine fighter. The attack caused no damage. A second Fortress, piloted by Capt. Robert H. Fuller of the 65th Bomb Squadron, escaped “a fantastic duel with a Nip night fighter from Madang to Wewak and back again.” The fighter reportedly made twelve passes at Fuller’s aircraft without scoring a single hit.

The B-24s of the 90th Bomb Group, assigned to attack Boram and Wewak airdromes, initially encountered little opposition. One of the first on the scene, a Liberator of the 320th Bomb Squadron named
Moby Dick
, was piloted by Lt. Lionel B. Potter. Approaching Wewak, he found it “just too quiet and peaceful—not a light or sign of life anywhere.” But soon four searchlights flicked on. Enemy gunners quickly found the range and shook the Liberator with near misses; then there were nine searchlights, after which the shell bursts became “awfully damn accurate.” The blinding searchlights prevented the bombardier from aiming through the Norden bombsight, so Potter verbally called for the release of their frag clusters after seeing “a beautiful string” of tracers from an automatic cannon arc in front of the bomber’s nose.

The trailing Liberators ran into heavy antiaircraft fire as well, and possibly one or more Ki-48s. Shortly after the leader of the 400th Bomb Squadron lit up Boram with more than 1,500 incendiaries,
Yanks From Hell II
, piloted by 2nd Lt. Joseph M. Casale of the 321st squadron, burst into flames. The sight of the heavy bomber, blazing like a comet as it arced toward the black jungle, stunned the nearby crews. The stricken bomber may have collided with
Twin Nifties II
, flown by 1st Lt. Charles R. Freas of the 400th Squadron, which flew southward for about twenty minutes before smashing into a swamp. But an alternate situation is also worth noting. The 13th Flying Regiment, operating a squadron of twin-engine fighters out of Boram, claimed one bomber destroyed and another probably destroyed on August 17.

Leaving destruction in their wake, the bomber crews set course for Port Moresby. During the return flight, a third B-24 (of the 403rd Squadron/43rd Bomb Group) went down along the coast of New Guinea after the crew became
lost and ran out of gas. The offshore crash-landing killed four crewmembers. The other heavies returned safely, and despite twenty-five empty cots among the bomb groups (
Yanks From Hell II
had gone down with eleven men aboard), most of the participants considered the mission successful. “Not too bad,” Lieutenant Potter observed afterward, “three planes out of forty-eight.”

Whitehead’s first aerial jab had connected, setting up the Fifth Air Force for an even harder punch. The goal had been to cause enough damage that the Japanese would still be assessing the situation come daybreak, and that goal succeeded. According to Japanese documentation, thirteen aircraft had been destroyed on the ground, twenty badly damaged, and another thirty-four slightly damaged.

Some of the heavies were still winging back to Port Moresby when five squadrons of strafer-modified B-25s commenced the next segment of Whitehead’s plan. Beginning at 0600, twenty-four aircraft of the 71st and 405th Bomb Squadrons, 38th Bomb Group, took off from Durand Field near Port Moresby. At the same time, the Dobodura-based 8th, 13th, and 90th Bomb Squadrons, 3rd Bomb Group, sent aloft thirty-seven strafers, which had hopped over the mountains to Port Moresby the day before. Heading north toward designated rendezvous points, the B-25s were to pick up escorts of P-38s from six squadrons of the 35th, 49th, and 475th Fighter Groups. (Kenney’s concerns about the lack of fighters had been greatly alleviated: of the 127 Lightnings in commission on August 16, V Fighter Command committed 99 of them as escorts for the B-25s.)