Target: Rabaul (45 page)

Other Avengers successfully attacked the destroyer
Naganami
, a sister ship of
Suzunami
. Both ships, bearing a tall superstructure immediately forward of two funnels, were mistaken for three-stack “light cruisers.” Hit by one torpedo aft of the third turret,
Naganami
drifted to a stop and was later towed into Simpson Harbor by another destroyer.

Overall, the reports submitted by the Avenger squadrons ran from spectacular to mediocre. Torpedo Squadron 9 (
Essex
) claimed hits on three destroyers, one light cruiser, and five cruisers. In comparison, the nine planes from Composite Squadron 22 (
Independence
) attacked the “
Furutaka
-class cruiser,” but claimed only one hit. Finally, numerous pilots reported attacks on
Mogami
- and
Myoko
-class cruisers. Both types were large, displacing over thirteen thousand tons, and had three gun turrets forward of the superstructure. Sketches drawn by the attackers clearly show this turret arrangement, and their narratives imply that several such vessels were attacked; however, only one warship with that arrangement was present at Rabaul that day. The heavy cruiser
Maya
, 15,781 tons, had been severely damaged by
Saratoga’
s dive-bombers on November 5 but was untouched by bombs or torpedoes on the 11th.

FLYING LOW OVER the water after making individual dive-bombing or torpedo attacks, the American fliers now faced the most dangerous segment of the mission. The Japanese fighters swarmed in, attempting to cut off planes. Damaged aircraft attracted the most unwanted attention.

Hugging the wave tops in a damaged TBF, Krantz was abeam Kokopo when a flight of mottled green fighters approached from the right. They flashed by without firing a shot, the nearest plane missing the Avenger by mere feet. Krantz could clearly see a distinctive yellow lightning bolt painted on its tail. The fighter looked very much like a Zero, but was probably a Ki-43 Oscar.
^*

Spinning his turret around, Virgil Case shot down one of the fighters, according to Krantz. Moments later, another fell to the guns of an F6F.

The skies over Blanche Bay and Saint George’s Channel were filled with furiously fighting warplanes. Most of the torpedo planes and dive-bombers managed to find one or more squadron mates to join with, whereupon the Japanese typically left them alone. But the situation was different for Lt. j.g. Henry C. Carby of Torpedo Squadron 17. After making two unsuccessful attack runs, Carby was separated from the rest of his squadron. An estimated six Zekes hounded him over the next
thirty miles, pumping a total of 207 bullets and cannon shells into the Avenger’s fuselage, wings, and control surfaces. The turret gunner and radio operator fought back, ultimately driving off the Zekes after shooting down one and probably destroying another. The rugged Avenger not only made it back to the task group, but Carby landed successfully aboard
Bunker Hill
. The plane, deemed a total loss due to battle damage, was shoved overboard.

Elsewhere, aerial battles raged on. After a hair-raising run on a cruiser, Hamilton McWhorter of Fighting Squadron 9 spotted a huge melee southeast of Rabaul. “The scene was like something out of the movies—dozens of aircraft turning and spinning and spiraling,” he later wrote. “There was an explosion here, a parachute there, and airplanes spinning down in flames everywhere. The water was dotted with three or four big, light blue rings where airplanes had crashed and churned the surface.”

McWhorter waded into the donnybrook without a wingman and was involved in a dizzying, sometimes terrifying fight that lasted several long minutes. The American planes steadily withdrew to the southeast toward the task group, eventually forcing the Japanese to break off and return to their airdromes. By the time the melee broke up, McWhorter had downed two Zekes and probably a third. Back aboard
Essex
, he counted at least a dozen bullet holes in his Hellcat.

ALTHOUGH THE TWO carrier groups launched 275 aircraft, the results of the raid were disappointing. One destroyer sank, and a light cruiser and three destroyers sustained damage. The cost on the American side was low. Despite the heavy antiaircraft fire over Rabaul and the spirited Japanese interception, only nine planes failed to return to the carriers. Four TBFs were missing, including those flown by Nyarady and Krantz. The remaining five were Hellcats: two each from
Bunker Hill
and
Independence
, and one from
Essex
. In addition, one Avenger, two Helldivers, and four Hellcats either ditched near their carriers because of battle damage or were pushed overboard. Some thirty planes returned with various degrees of damage, much of it considered minor, and several pilots and crewmen were wounded. The worst was suffered by an SB2C gunner, William O. Haynes Jr. who was shot through the left side of his face by a bullet that broke his jaw.

The Americans hugely exaggerated their aerial victories. Hellcat pilots and a few rear gunners were credited with destroying thirty-seven enemy planes and probably destroying ten more that morning. Enemy losses amounted to eight aircraft from the Eleventh Air Fleet, and three from the detached carrier groups. Among the pilots killed were a
Zuikaku
division officer and a
Zuiho
group leader.

Japanese newspapers reported an even greater level of exaggeration: “Imperial Navy air and surface units, encountering about 200 enemy planes which came to raid Rabaul on November 11, shot down 71 of them.”

Neither side, it seemed, was interested in toning down the rhetoric.

THE BIGGEST AIR battle of the day—and the biggest exaggerations—were yet to occur. Sherman’s task force had managed to avoid detection, but Montgomery’s task group, steaming closer to Rabaul in an area searched frequently by the Japanese, was snooped during the morning. At midday, Kusaka launched a heavy counterattack. Originally the effort consisted of 106 aircraft, making it one of Japan’s largest anticarrier strikes thus far. From the units of the 1st Carrier Division, twenty-three Vals, fourteen Kates, and thirty-three Zeros took off to attack the American fleet. In addition, thirty-two fighters from the land-based groups and four Judys of Air Group 501 lifted off from the airdromes at Rabaul. The latter group of fighters, led by a young officer with little combat experience, failed to rendezvous with the main strike force and returned. Three Vals that experienced mechanical trouble also turned back, leaving seventy-one aircraft headed toward Montgomery’s task group. Leading the mission was Lt. Masao Sato, commander of the
Zuiho’s
fighter unit and a Pearl Harbor veteran.

Aboard the American carriers, fliers headed to galleys and wardrooms for lunch while their planes were patched up, refueled, and rearmed for a follow-up strike on Rabaul. Three SB2Cs took off from
Bunker Hill
to patrol specific sectors out ahead of the task force—a mundane assignment that all three crews objected to, thinking they would miss the second raid. The assigned strike crews manned their aircraft and started engines at 1300. Fifteen minutes later radar detected the inbound raid 119 miles away.

Shipboard fighter directors vectored elements of Fighting Squadrons 17 and 33, already overhead on CAP, toward the bogies. Montgomery ordered the second strike to launch, and several F6Fs lifted off beginning at 1325, followed by a few torpedo planes. When enemy aircraft were sighted overhead, Montgomery reluctantly cancelled the remaining launch at 1354. The Vals and their escorting Zeros, faster than the torpedo-laden Kates, had reached the task group.

Picking up the talk between ships (TBS) handset aboard
Essex
, Montgomery broadcast to his fleet: “Man your guns and shoot those bastards out of the sky!”

The screening force of nine destroyers maneuvered into a circular “Victor Screen” four thousand yards across, with the three carriers grouped in the center, all steaming at 25 to 30 knots. The
Essex
-class carriers mounted 24 5-inch guns, 106 40mm cannons, and 160 20mm automatic cannons. Five of the “tin cans” forming the outer ring were
Fletcher
-class destroyers, each packing five 5-inch guns, four 40mm mounts, and four 20mm guns; the other four, all pre-
Fletcher
types, were only slightly less heavily armed.
^*

For the second time that day, the sky was filled with swarming combatants. Dark green Japanese warplanes twisted and dived between streams of tracer
rounds and bursts of antiaircraft fire. Some Japanese planes turned away from the fusillade, but plenty of Vals and Zekes pushed through the flak to strafe and bomb the carriers.
Bunker Hill
attracted the most attention.

Numerous Corsair and Hellcat pilots ignored the flak. A report from the destroyer
Edwards
stated: “Friendly fighters, both shore-based and carrier-based, were repeatedly observed pressing home their attacks with outstanding determination, even in the face of heavy antiaircraft fire from our surface ships. Their presence was very gratifying and every effort was made to keep our fire away from them.”

At 1410 the low-flying Kates commenced attacking, and for the next ten minutes the task group faced the additional challenge of dodging torpedoes. Each of the skippers proved a superb ship-handler, adept at combing the torpedoes with careful timing. Not one direct hit was scored. A few bombs splashed near
Bunker Hill
, sprinkling the flight deck with steel splinters, but that was as close as the enemy got.

Between the antiaircraft gunners, the original CAP, and the additional fighters launched prior to the attack, the U.S. Navy had a field day. Even some of the freshly launched strike planes got into the action, along with a couple of the Bombing 17 Helldivers returning from their patrol. The attack was stopped cold. None of the Kates returned to Rabaul, and seventeen of twenty-three dive-bombers fell to American planes and antiaircraft guns. Only two
Reisens
were shot down, but the blow to enemy morale must have been great: one of the pilots killed was Lieutenant Sato, the highly experienced leader from
Zuiho
.

Lastly, two of the four Judys did not return to Rabaul. Four American pilots claimed to have shot down Ki-63 Tonys, but they were almost certainly cases of mistaken identity. The presence of the look-alike Judys has been well documented, whereas only a few abandoned Ki-63s remained at Rabaul by late 1943. Perhaps some of these were patched up sufficiently to defend their immediate surroundings, but it’s doubtful that four examples were in good enough condition to fly far out to sea, particularly when all the other Japanese participants were naval aircraft.

Of the four so-called “Tonys” credited to American pilots, one was claimed by Blackburn, the commanding officer of Fighting 17. His squadron was credited with destroying seventeen enemy planes and damaging seven others during the intense fight. VF-9 did even better, as some twenty pilots were credited with destroying twenty-one Vals, seventeen Kates, two Tonys, and a twin-engine Betty. (One of the squadron’s high scorers, Lt. Eugene A. Valencia, downed 3.5 aircraft that day on his way to becoming the navy’s third-ranking fighter ace.) Similarly, VF-18s off
Bunker Hill
officially received credit for destroying twenty Vals, five Kates, three Zekes, and a Betty.

The three fighter squadrons alone claimed eighty-six enemy aircraft shot down, more than the actual number of participants. The discrepancy begs a question: Were the excessive claims due to honest mistakes, or had the competition for recognition led to chronic exaggerations?

After the war Blackburn penned one balanced approach to the dilemma. As a combat leader, he had earned the right to discuss the topic:

Aerial combat, particularly over ships firing their own guns all out, is confusing, to say the least. And the results are confusing. Overzealous pilots tend to claim kills for every burst fired, and there is a marked tendency by each of the crews of competing warships to count shared kills as their own. For whatever reasons, claims of kills over embattled warships are usually inflated and, at best, should be taken with a degree of skepticism.

But even Blackburn couldn’t be objective regarding his own squadron. His pilots submitted a multitude of victory claims on November 11, resulting in official credit for 18.5 kills. Blackburn stated rather hypocritically that he stood behind the number. Apparently, the tendency to overclaim applied only to other squadrons.

The three carrier air groups and two land-based squadrons lost only a handful of planes between them. Two VF-17 Corsairs ran out of fuel and ditched (both pilots were rescued), two VF-33 Hellcats were shot down with one pilot rescued, and an Avenger from VT-9 was involved in an operational accident. The most regrettable loss was a Helldiver from VB-17, which never returned from its long-range patrol mission. The crew had been assigned to search the exact sector from which the Japanese raid appeared, and the hapless crew was almost certainly overwhelmed by dozens of enemy planes.

Although the Japanese outfits suffered heavy losses, the surviving fliers conjured up an amazing victory back at Rabaul. As usual, their claims were accepted—or perhaps even manipulated—by the
Johokyoku
. Two days later, the newspapers proclaimed:

The Imperial Navy air arm sighted a powerful enemy mobile unit comprised of aircraft carriers and warships in the waters to the west of Mono Island. Without losing any momentum, the Imperial Navy Wild Eagles carried out devastating attacks, blitz-sinking one cruiser, inflicting slight damage on two aircraft carriers, and setting three cruisers, possibly large destroyers, ablaze. In addition, two enemy planes were shot down. The number of Imperial Navy planes that crashed onto the enemy or have yet to return totaled 30. This is indeed regrettable.

As the papers hinted, the regrettable fact for Kusaka and the Combined Fleet was the number of frontline aircraft and veteran aircrews lost in the past two weeks. The aviation units of the First Carrier Fleet had been squandered, and by the time Koga pulled the remainder back to Truk, he had lost half the fighters, 85 percent of the dive-bombers, and 95 percent of the torpedo bombers.