Flames in the Sky: Epic stories of WWII air war heroism from the author of The Big Show (Pierre Clostermann's Air War Collection Book 2)

by Pierre Clostermann

  No parachute.

  Ten minutes later the five surviving Curtiss’s landed without mishap. The missing pilot was Lieutenant Earl R. Stone, Junior, who already had four confirmed successes to his credit.

  On 12th February Baguio was liberated by the Japs’ retreat southwards under pressure. The enemy who had infiltrated behind the American lines and were besieging Baguio were gradually pressed back towards Logaska Point.

  The five P-40s were again based on the two coastal airfields, three at Bataan Field and two at Tacloban—where they survived twenty-six enemy air-raids in a fortnight.

  The exhausted pilots were doing two trips a day—spotting for the artillery, dropping medical supplies to forward troops isolated in the jungle, strafing and bombing Japanese installations. They shot down seven Kate dive-bombers, but lost Lieutenant Hynes, brought down during a long dog-fight with five Zeros.

  Only four P-40s were left, but the fitters at Mindoro succeeded in patching up two badly damaged ones which had been bombed and written off the previous December, and these unexpected reinforcements raised everybody’s morale.

  That very evening Woolery and Hall took off in the two reconditioned P-40s, whose practically new engines roused all the other pilots’ envy. They intercepted for the first time ‘Photo Joe,’ a twin-engined Betty which turned up every day at the same time to take photos over Corregidor. The Betty, caught between them, tried to break loose. The two Curtiss’s attacked simultaneously and the horrified spectators on the ground saw them both break up in the air at the first burst from their guns. Woolery and Hall were killed.

  This tragedy profoundly affected all the flying personnel, and it was only the next day that the military police got to the bottom of the mystery. A pro-Japanese Sakdalist saboteur had been caught and he revealed under ‘third degree’ that the men in the San José group at Mindoro had received special instructions for sabotaging planes. It was only necessary to ram a few bullets forcibly up the barrels of the machine-guns with rods. This blocked them, and when the pilot fired the barrels burst, snapping the main spar and ripping open the wing, which disintegrated at once. The Sakdalists had done this to the two P-40s and the armourers at Tacloban had only had time to check on the actual loading of the machine-guns. The sabotage had therefore not been detected.

  It was another very sad evening. The news from all the Allied fronts was getting more and more depressing—Benghazi retaken by Rommel, the Repulse and the Prince of Wales sunk off the Malayan coast. Every day the besieged Americans were more isolated.

  On the 3rd March General George was called up at 11.30 by Palafox—the observation post on Mount Mariveles—on Red frequency, the one reserved for urgent messages in clear.

  ‘Two large tankers, four troop-transports, including a ship of about 20,000 tons, are making for Subic Bay.’

  It was the reinforcements the Japanese were waiting for to launch the final attack which should throw the Americans into the sea. Rather than bring them to Manila and then on by land, the enemy was bringing them direct to where they would be needed, at Olangapo, the harbour in Subic Bay.

  The half-dozen American bombers remaining in the southwest Pacific were in Australia, being used by the Navy for long-range reconnaissance.

  The Japanese ships were calmly approaching the coast, in broad daylight.

  General George quickly made up his mind, and sent for Captain Dyess, commanding N. 21 Squadron. The tall, thin, gawky captain was the last survivor—with Bud Wagner, whom MacArthur had just sent back to Port Darwin—of the original eighty pilots the general had brought with him from the States just a year before.

  In a few words the situation was explained to him. He must have his plane fitted with the bomb-rack which had been knocked-up by Sergeant Jack Day, the ace fitter at Tacloban. Now was the moment to put it into use. This gadget, made out of old valve-springs and motor-car pans, enabled a P-40 to carry a 500-pounder. But as there were only two of these bombs available, they had better not miss!

  Dyess decided to make two trips, with one P-40 for close support and two more at 13,000 feet for top cover.

  He took off, his plane vibrating and labouring with the extra load. Three minutes later the three escorting P-40s flew over H.Q. in impeccable formation, and disappeared behind Mount Mariveles, which bounded the horizon to the north-east with its gigantic crater.

  From then on General George could only follow the progress of his aircraft from the radar operator’s monotonous commentary.

  ‘Here Prestone, Prestone, 9MN . . . distance 18, bearing 230—distance 19, bearing 225—distance 18.50, bearing 220.’

  The planes must be climbing over the friendly area in a spiral.

  ‘Distance 19.50, bearing 215—distance 22, bearing 216.’

  Ah! They had set course on Subic Bay.

  The sound of the engines had got lost in the booming of the Japanese guns firing away behind the mountain. The electric eye alone, cold and impersonal, kept track of the invisible planes on the screen of the SCR 228.

  The three troop-transports were just edging into the jetty at Olangapo when the Curtiss’s dived. Dyess’s bomb grazed the hull of the biggest and exploded between the ship and the jetty, raising a mass of water which cataracted on to the decks. Developing a terrific impact off the immovable stone of the jetty, the shock wave stove in the ship’s plates. She immediately took a heavy list. The decks were covered with helpless soldiers whom the P-40s now strafed furiously. Bunches of them jumped into the sea.

  One of the tankers, trying to escape, was attacked in turn. The incendiary bullets perforated the tanks and petrol flooded out, swamping the alleyways. Suddenly the ship exploded in a volcano of flame. A sheet of fire with hundreds of soldiers swimming in it spread half a mile over the bay.

  ‘Distance 14, bearing 225—distance 08, bearing 225 . . .’

  The planes were coming back to reload.

  The pilots were exultant. The second bomb was brought out, fused and man-handled into position under Dyess’s aircraft by eight men using improvised levers.

  The planes took off again. General George was both anxious—why no Zeros?—and elated, for the Navy observer on Mount Mariveles had just told him over the radio that through his telescope he had seen the 20,000-ton transport capsize with its human cargo still on board.

  This time, Dyess decided he would go all out for a bull and release his bomb at point-blank range. He dived, struggling with the controls, to keep his plane in a straight line on the target. The airframe, too often repaired, started to show signs of breaking up and rivets on the wing surfaces began to spring loose.

  Now! The bomb hit the Nagura Mam smack between its two red-and-white-banded funnels. The impact covered the sea all around with white foam and the ship took on a list and began to sink.

  Now for a shoot-up! The four planes concerted their efforts and attacked a second tanker, but without any visible result this time. After two runs each, they left it and made for the other transport.

  ‘Hullo Leo, Leo, here Prestone 9MN, look out! Enemy aircraft, distance 30, bearing 010. Look out!’

  But it was too late. Before the Curtiss’s could take up defensive formation or gain height the Zeros, alerted by the ships’ SOS, fell on Olangapo like angry hornets.

  This time there was little hope—one to ten, about. Lieutenant Fosse crashed in flames on the naval yards and Stinson dodged one Zero, only to crash into another. Dyess and Crellin battled on desperately. Their physical condition, after months of privation, was such that Dyess blacked out and vomited at each tight turn. They were irrevocably trapped low down over the water, the Zeros bearing down on them like an enraged pack of hounds.

  Crellin’s plane began to smoke. The pilot, choking, struggled to open the hood, but when it gave at last the air rushed in and the flames enveloped him. Dyess, now alone, kept up the desperate struggle. With each turn he succeeded in edging closer to Tacloban.

  The unequal combat now continued over the base. Everyone had r
ushed out and was following the dog-fight, powerless to intervene. General George, completely unwrung, knelt down, with tears in his eyes and prayed aloud.

  Dyess’s Curtiss was now dragging a long white trail of smoke. It was immediately above the airfield, with the Zeros hot on its heels. Suddenly it flicked over on its back and the pilot jumped. The parachute opened out at tree level and the vegetation swallowed it up at once. George’s prayers had been answered, for Dyess had jumped so low that the Japs did not have time to machine-gun him.

  That was the end of 24th Interceptor Command. This last operation had accounted for the four last Curtiss P-40s at Bataan. On 9th April the very few survivors of the American Armed Forces in the peninsula capitulated. MacArthur had previously had Dyess transported to Mindoro in the old Bellanca, and he survived all his five 7.7-mm. bullet wounds to receive the Congressional Medal of Honour from President Roosevelt in person.

  Note on the Zero

  The Zero was for the Japanese what the Spitfire and the Messerschmitt 109 were for the British and the Germans.

  Its proper name in the Imperial Japanese Navy was Mitsubishi A6M Type O; hence its nickname of Zero, given to it by the Americans. They meant nothing depreciatory by it: on the contrary.

  It is easy to see why American flying and intelligence personnel soon found themselves having to give Japanese planes code names. It was impossible to sort out the fantastically complicated Japanese system of nomenclature, quite apart from the difficulties of pronunciation.

  At the experimental stage each Japanese military plane was given an official ‘Ki’ number. This series was chronological from the blue-print stage and was common to all aircraft constructors. Later, when they were manufactured and distributed to squadrons, they got a registration which included the manufacturer’s name, a number indicating the year of production in the Japanese calendar, a description of its functions in code and a type or sub-type number. To make things more complicated, the Japanese calendar was based on the year of the foundation of the Japanese Empire, 660 B.c.

  Up till 1939 (i.e. year 2599 in Japan) the Navy and Army Air Forces used the last two figures to denote the type of aircraft. For example, they gave the designation of Type 99 both to what we knew as the Val dive-bomber and to the first version of the twin-engined Lily. After 1940 (year 2600) the Army used the number 100, and the Navy the ‘O’. In subsequent years only the last figure was used.

  It was all very complicated, especially as the same aircraft had two names if it was produced by two different factories. Even later, when the Japanese gave individual names to their military planes—names of constellations or meteorological phenomena—the difficulty remained because you never knew just what plane was being referred to, and it was impossible to pronounce the names in the Romagi phonetic transcription.

  The Technical Air Intelligence Unit (T.A.I.U.) directed by Colonel MacCoy, whose task was the study of Japanese aeronautical material, decided to settle the problem once and for all. At that time—early 1942—all enemy aircraft were called Zero if they were fighters and Mitsubishi if they had more than one engine. It was an over-simplification, and dangerous when evaluating the potential strength of any given enemy airfield.

  MacCoy hit on the idea of giving each Japanese plane an arbitrary name, usually an ordinary Christian name. In one month more than seventy-five names were allotted—Jake, Pete, Rufe, Zeke, etc. It could easily be deduced from the names chosen that the author came from Tennessee.

  When MacCoy began to transmit the results of his labours to Washington he succeeded in completely jamming the radio services. MacArthur, C.-in-C. in the theatre of operations, who was at that time rather lukewarm about the air arm, blew up, thinking that the Air Force were communicating with the Pentagon in secret code behind his back. To reassure him MacCoy christened the new Mitsubishi bomber Type 97 (Ki 21) ‘Jane’ after Mrs. MacArthur.

  MacArthur allowed himself to be mollified, until one day he came across some of the ‘poems’ composed by airmen about the female personalities of the Jap planes. Like most service literary compositions, these were scarcely repeatable in polite company. A curt note from MacArthur led to ‘Jane’ being changed to ‘Sally’.

  As the supply of names began to run short, T.A.I.U. began baptising planes with the names of friends and relatives. Frank, Francis, Joe—the Christian names of Colonels MacCoy, Williams and Grattan, the top men in T.A.I.U.—were soon followed by Loise and June, MacCoy’s wife and daughter.

  When one realises that the Japanese produced no fewer than 118 different types of military aircraft in five years, it is easy to guess at the Chinese puzzle (if I may so describe it) which resulted, as only plain, short names would do, three syllables at the most, and not such as could be mistaken for something else over R/T. The Zero kept its name, which had already achieved wide popular recognition, in spite of its official appellation, ‘Zeke’.

  The Zero was a nasty surprise for the Americans. In 1941 they firmly believed that the Japanese only had absurd old monoplane fighters with fixed under-carriage, or bi-planes corresponding to their own obsolete 1930 planes. This belief was aided and abetted by the specialist periodicals and by the ‘technical experts’ of the press. Nobody dreamed that the Americans themselves would soon by only too happy to use their old Boeing P-26s with fixed undercarriage in the Philippines!

  There is no point in enlarging here on the dangers of underestimating your enemy. Hitler did the same with the Russians’ tanks and planes in 1941. (As history invariably repeats itself, the same imbecile attitude towards the Soviet post-war Air Force prevailed until the war in Korea.)

  Naturally the awakening was rude and American pilots saw very quickly how far reality was from the official version. It was no use trying to take on a Zero in a dog-fight. It turned too tightly, climbed too fast and was generally as slippery as an eel.

  The first pilot to learn this was Lieut. George Whiteman, on the occasion of the attack on Pearl Harbor, on 7th December 1941, and he paid with his life for a lesson which many of his comrades had to learn the hard way too. One after the other, Allied fighter-pilots got themselves shot down trying to find the correct tactics against that small, fast, agile gadfly. It was rather the same problem as the Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitt 109 had with the handy and manoeuvrable Spitfire.

  The Spitfire’s reputation being what it was—and a thoroughly deserved one at that, since the Spit was a superb plane, and adored by those who flew it—the R.A.F. quickly sent out an Australian Spit Wing from England to Darwin.

  This crack unit, equipped with Spitfire IXa’s and commanded by the famous ‘Killer’ Caldwell, was composed entirely of experienced pilots who had been fighting the Luftwaffe for the past year, and it arrived in Australia complete with all its equipment, including a top-notch radar control system. The situation was critical, but the new wing, attributing the poor P-40 boys’ pessimism to wounded pride, ignored their warnings and adopted a ‘now we’ll show ’em’ attitude.

  The answer was not long in coming. On 2nd May 1943 twenty-one Japanese bombers, escorted by thirty-two Zeros, raided Darwin. The interception, by thirty-two Spitfires, directed by an English radar controller, was superb. But after the battle, when the score was taken, there was no escaping the fact that thirteen Spitfires had been lost for one bomber and five Zeros destroyed. The Australian fighter-pilots’ enthusiasm was a shade dampened.

  On 30th June twenty-seven Bettys escorted by thirty Zeros came back for more. Once again the Australians intercepted impeccably, but for eight bombers and two Zeros, six Spitfires out of the forty-one which took off never came back. The Australians were beginning to catch on, for this time they had avoided the fighters as far as possible and concentrated on the bombers.

  In spite of all their experience, the greatest Allied aces always got caught out in the end—and in aerial combat your first mistake is usually your last. The great Tommy MacGuire—the acknowledged ace in the Pacific after Bong’s departure—with his thirty-eight
successes, including twenty-one Zeros, went the same way as the others.

  On 7th December 1944, exactly three years after Whiteman’s death, MacGuire was leading a patrol of four P-38 Lightnings in a roving mission against the enemy airfields at Cebu and Los Negros. His No. 2 was Mayor Rittmayer, fourteen successes. Two thousand feet above Los Negros they saw a beautiful shining black Zero threading his way through the mountains. This plane, as was learnt the next day, had just been strafing an American torpedo-boat which was searching for a pilot ditched in the sea, and he was probably on his way home, short of ammunition.

  The four Lightnings dived. The Zero patiently waited until they were within range. Then he did a tight left turn which brought him on Rittmayer’s tail. One well-aimed burst and one of Rittmayer’s engines caught fire. Surprised, he called for help and MacGuire came up. The Zero now did a tight right turn, fired again, and MacGuire crashed in flames. A loop, a final burst, and the remains of Rittmayer’s plane were scattered over the enemy airfield. Having exhausted his ammunition, the Zero calmly went on turning inside the other two Lightnings, who could not get at him. They had to remove themselves at full throttle only too thankful to be still in one piece, when six other Zeros took off to join in. Thank goodness all Jap pilots were not of the same calibre as this one.

  One of the pilots who flew Tempests with me in 1945, an incredible Australian called Bay Adams (see The Big Show), told me about his first scrap with Zeros on 6th July 1943.

  He was one of a formation of twenty-four Spitfires which intercepted the regular bi-weekly raid by twenty-seven bombers and twenty-one Zeros. Following instructions, they immediately dived on the bombers, ten of which were shot down without loss, the remainder jettisoning their bombs. Having completed their task, the Spitfires tried to fade away, but the Zeros reacted very aggressively and there was nothing for it but to face them.