Target: Rabaul (57 page)

At the rear of Boyington’s division, Lt. Donald J. Moore was last seen lagging behind his section leader, Lt. Christopher L. Magee. The separation made Moore easy for the aggressive Zekes to pick off.

Farther back in the formation, Cameron Dustin turned the Corsairs of VMF-214’s third division to face the oncoming Zeros. He pulled hard into a climb, and the other three pilots tried to stay with him. But the maneuver was a tactical blunder, recalled Olander, flying wing on Dustin: “He flew us right up into the sun and held us on course until bullets were tearing off parts of our planes.”

Self-preservation took over. Olander rolled into a dive; so did Matheson, leading the second section. The Zeke that had been putting arrows in Olander’s wings overshot him and paid the price, falling after a long burst from the marine’s six machine guns. Matheson, with several Zekes on his tail, dodged for his life until he reached a cloud. When he popped out, the Zekes were in front of him and slightly below. Matheson blasted the Tail-End Charlie, then firewalled the throttle until he was safely away from Rabaul.

No one knew what happened to Dustin or to Lt. Harry R. Bartl, flying in the fourth position. Both men evidently fell to the swarm of Zeros. At one point during the action, a pilot from VMF-216 saw a Corsair in distress with a Zeke hot on its tail. Lieutenant Robert E. Foote was too far away to assist, but tried to distract the enemy pilot. “From a distance clear out of range I gave the Jap a burst,” he reported. “About that time he evidently was sure the F4U was going in, so he turned away. I followed the F4U and saw him make what appeared to be a normal water landing.”

Foote said he was “unable to determine” if the pilot got out of the Corsair, which sank within fifteen seconds. He circled the crash site for “several more minutes,” but his report never stated clearly that he saw the pilot—raising the possibility that the pilot was incapacitated or had already bailed out.

While the other Corsair squadrons claimed numerous victories, most of the Black Sheep fought indecisively. Boyington sighted a fighter four thousand feet
below and dove to approach the enemy plane from astern. But when Boyington opened fire, the fighter suddenly zoomed with “a terrific rate of climb.” He misidentified it as Army Type 2 fighter (Nakajima Ki-44 “Tojo”), a model never based at Rabaul. Boyington likely fired on a clipped-wing Hamp, which he claimed as a probable victory, citing the fact that he saw smoke trailing behind the fighter as it climbed above him. However, he simply may have witnessed a common situation—one that fooled many Allied pilots and aerial gunners.

Throughout the Pacific war, hundreds of Japanese planes Allies fired upon were classified as “smokers.” Many of these were declared probable victories; if the engine had been damaged badly enough to emit smoke, the aircraft probably crashed before reaching the nearest friendly field or flattop. But the “smoke,” especially in the Zero, was a common phenomenon. After a years-long study of Japanese aircraft vulnerability, Richard Dunn noted: “Zero fighters left a trail of smoke when the engine boost was increased for maximum combat performance. A sudden advance of the throttle might also result in a backfire and momentary flash of flame.”

Several factors led to the “dirty” output, including low-octane gasoline, moisture contamination of fuel, carbon buildup, and a decline in maintenance quality. The result was an incomplete burn or improper ignition of the fuel-air mixture, especially under wide-open throttle settings. The situation was so common, according to Dunn, that Japanese pilots were cautioned not make sudden throttle changes if they suspected a fuel leak, lest a backfire ignite the leaking gasoline.

Boyington may have hit the Hamp, but its trail of smoke was not proof of damage. He claimed a probable victory, which did nothing for his overall score. And there was nothing in his combat report to indicate that he attempted to reenter the big scrum over Rabaul that day. After the Hamp zoomed out of his sight, he apparently decided he’d had enough. Four of Boyington’s pilots, including Olander and Matheson, were credited with single victories, and members of VMF-216, -223, and -321 reportedly shot down another twenty-two Zeros. Again the total claims were preposterous, considering that the Japanese lost three fighters and their pilots, with two other Zeros badly damaged. Still, Boyington came up comparatively empty.

Unwilling to deal with intrusive correspondents at Vella Lavella, Boyington returned to Torokina airstrip, where conditions were primitive but quiet, and remained there overnight. He had not only failed to advance his score, but he three of his own men were missing. Losing Moore, a popular Texan and one of the original pilots selected by Boyington at Turtle Bay, was especially difficult.

Matching Boyington’s mood, heavy rains washed out December 29. After sitting around at Torokina for most of the day, he finally hopped down to Vella Lavella late in the afternoon. He landed at 1800 hours, by which time the mission orders for the following day had already been posted. It was to be another two-pronged effort, with Carl leading a fighter sweep in conjunction with a bombing raid by Thirteenth Air Force B-24s—and Boyington was not on the schedule.

Heading straight to the VMF-223 camp area, Boyington asked Carl, “How about trading flights tomorrow?” Then he rephrased it: “Let me take your hop tomorrow.”

Carl asked why. Boyington said, “I’m due to rotate, and I don’t think they’ll let me come back up again. I’ve got [twenty-five] airplanes and I’d like to get the record.”

Carl figured he had plenty of time to make up the difference. “Okay, I’ll trade you,” he answered.

Taking off at 0700 with four divisions, Boyington flew back up to Torokina on December 30. There, he received more bad news. The forecast called for lousy weather over Rabaul, and the fighter sweep portion of the mission was cancelled. Boyington’s trade had been wasted. He later wrote of feeling “helpless,” although hindsight helped ease his frustration. “I came to realize that a record meant absolutely nothing; it would be broken again and again, in spite of anything I did. I was worried only about what others might think of me,” he noted.

The bombing mission went as planned. The two divisions of Black Sheep assigned as escorts were led by Maj. Henry S. Miller, formerly the operations officer, who had become executive officer after Carnagey’s loss. Joined by twenty Corsairs and twenty Hellcats, the fighters took off from Torokina at 0920 to rendezvous with two squadrons of Liberators out of Guadalcanal and Munda. Colonel Marion D. Unruh, commanding officer of the 5th Bombardment Group (Heavy), led the mission in a B-24 named
The Pretty Prairie Special
.

Poor visibility delayed the join-up and approach to the target. Unruh led twenty B-24s, with Hellcats of VF-33 providing close cover, up Saint George’s Channel at twenty-two thousand feet. After overflying Rabaul, the formation made a 180-degree left turn and set up the bomb run, dropping more than seventy thousand-pound bombs through the scattered cloud cover. Heavy antiaircraft fire burst over Rabaul and Simpson Harbor, causing no apparent damage. However, within seconds of the formation’s collective bomb release, Unruh called to Maj. Charles L. Peirce, commanding officer of the 72nd Bomb Squadron, “Take over, Charlie, we’re going down.” Peirce moved his Liberator into the lead slot while Unruh steered toward New Ireland. (Crews were still advised to seek out the islander named Boski for assistance.)
The Pretty Prairie Special
, its left inboard engine smoking badly and several Zeros closing in, was last seen descending into clouds approximately ten thousand feet over New Ireland.

Unruh managed to ditch the B-24 just off the coast with two fatalities among the crew of eleven. Islanders paddled out and rescued the survivors, whom search planes spotted on the beach the next day. However, before a rescue could be coordinated, Unruh and his men were captured by the Kempeitai and taken to the POW compound in Rabaul.

Unruh was popular with the crews of the 5th Bomb Group. They grieved his absence, but his loss probably did not shock them. Unruh had already flown dozens of missions—far more than most group commanders, and even more than some of his high-time crews. Lieutenant Donald MacAllister, 31st Bomb
Squadron, had approached Unruh one day and suggested some reasons for him to stop leading hazardous missions: foul weather, mechanical trouble, damage from enemy action. “You can only dodge that black bean so many times,” MacAllister said. “It’ll come up and something real bad will happen to you.”

The conversation mirrored one that had taken place in New Guinea a year earlier, when Kenney told Ken Walker to stop flying combat missions. But Unruh, like Walker, refused to listen. In fact, Unruh waved off MacAllister’s concern, saying, “Well, lieutenant, let me tell you, sir, they can’t shoot me down.”

Of course the Japanese could—and did. And Unruh, along with the other men in his Liberator, paid a steep price for thinking he was invincible.

WHILE GLOOM SETTLED over the 5th Bomb Group’s camp on New Year’s Eve, Boyington became testy. He spent most of the day in the tent he shared with Walton, staring at the steady rain. He was “jittery” by the time they sloshed though puddles to the mess tent for evening chow. Hampson, the AP correspondent, sat down across the table and badgered Boyington about the record. After two or three questions, Boyington lost his temper. “Goddamn it,” he shouted, flipping Hampson’s plate of food onto his lap, “why don’t you guys leave me alone? I don’t know if I’m going to break [the record] or not. Just leave me alone till I do or go down trying.”

Hampson later made it up to Boyington. The pilots in the squadron got away with addressing the major casually, calling him Greg or sometimes Gramps. (As a thirty-one-year old with three children, Boyington was considered ancient.) Penning lyrics for the squadron’s drinking song, the musically gifted “Moon” Mullen referred to Boyington as “our Pappy” to fit the rhythm. Hampson took it a step farther. A few days after the mess hall incident, he inserted “Pappy” into a story about Boyington as though it were a commonly used nickname. No one guessed, at the time, the impact it would have.

The downpour continued on New Year’s Eve, but Boyington was no longer content to sit. He hammered the lock off Reames’s supply of medicinal brandy and then mixed a big aluminum jug of alcoholic lime-aid. Soon half the squadron was crowded into the tent. Led by Mullen and the harmonic voices of the “Choral Society,” the Black Sheep belted out their repertoire to ring in the New Year. Some were bawdy, like “One Ball Reilly,” “Friggin’ in the Riggin’,” and “Oh, Throw Your Leg Over.” They also sang their own Black Sheep song, adapted by Mullen to the tune of the Yale “Whiffenpoof Song,” with the chorus line: “We are poor little sheep who have lost our way … ”

Several of the songs, ironically, gave a nod to the bastion they faced so often, where six of their companions had recently been lost. In addition to Mullen’s amusing “In a Rowboat at Rabaul,” the stronghold figured prominently in a lighthearted song about the exploits of “Acey Jones,” naturally sung to “The Ballad of Casey Jones.” But the most popular by far was “After Rabaul Is Over,” based on a well-known waltz, “After the Ball Is Over.” It began making the rounds after the carrier raids in November.
Later, thanks to the mingling of squadrons at Espiritu Santo and Sydney, the song was adapted by virtually every aviation outfit in the South Pacific:

After Rabaul is over,

After the close of day,

Count up the Japs and Zeros,

But just let me get away.

Take all your Navy Crosses,

Medals and ribbons, too,

Along with my orders and stuff them

Right up your avenue.

After Rabaul is over,

After Bull Halsey’s day,

MacArthur can have the credit,

Just send me home to stay.

I don’t want to be a hero,

So take your wings of gold,

To hell with the Southwest Pacific,

I just want to grow old.

Now that Rabaul is over,

None of them got away,

Fifty-four Japs is the record

Shot down in a single day.

Give Douglas our air group’s story,

To claim in his army bunk.

Just give me a bottle of whiskey,

I just want to get drunk.

Now that Rabaul is over,

I want to spend my days,

Back with the wine and women

Reading army communiqués.

I’ll take the Stateside duty,

A desk job and what is more,

Tell all the admirals and generals,

To hell with the goddamn war.

At midnight, several inebriated pilots went outside and fired flares into the sky. The next day, they heard that nervous ship captains in the anchorage at Vella Lavella thought an air raid was in progress.

THE START OF the new year found fifteen B-24s and sixty-eight escorting fighters over Rabaul. But it was the worst day yet for the heavies. Dozens of interceptors mauled the B-24s of the 307th Bomb Group, one of which was shot down in flames over Saint George’s Channel. Two others received heavy battle damage. One attempted an emergency landing at Torokina, coming straight in with only one main landing gear extended.

Major Miller, the Black Sheep’s exec, had been okayed to touch down from the opposite direction and was just rolling out near the Fighter Command tent. Because of the Corsair’s lengthy nose, he never saw the approaching bomber. The dangling wheel of the B-24 passed through the propeller arc of Miller’s plane, tore off its windscreen, and brought the Corsair to an abrupt stop. The landing gear assembly fell off the B-24, which then crash-landed on its belly and slid to a stop with no further injury to the crew.