Last to Die

by Stephen Harding

  And in just hours, it would.

  HOBO QUEEN II AND 578 passed over Miyake-jima just after noon and in what Rudy Pugliese’s later mission report termed “excellent flying weather” with “unrestricted visibility.”10 The Dominators were then at about 18,000 feet, with their crews on oxygen and wearing their full, fleece-lined, high-altitude gear. As the aircraft turned slightly to the north to parallel the coast of Chiba Prefecture the gunners aboard each B-32 tested their weapons, at which point the men in 578 learned that they had yet another problem.

  When tail gunner John Houston depressed the triggers on the twin .50s in his tail turret, he found that, for some reason he couldn’t immediately diagnose, the guns were firing far more slowly than their usual cyclic rate of between 450–550 rounds per minute.11 When he announced this over the intercom, Burton Keller—in the partially disabled nose turret—suggested to pilot John Anderson that because the Dominator’s two top turrets seemed to be the only ones working normally he, Anderson, should take the aircraft to a lower altitude as quickly as possible if enemy fighters attacked. That way the B-32’s belly, defenseless because of the inoperable ball turret, would not be exposed. The nose and tail gunners would do what they could, Keller said, but it would be up to the two upper turret gunners—Jimmie Smart aft and flight engineer Sergeant Benjamin F. Clayworth forward—to provide most of the aircraft’s defense.12

  Whether it would actually be necessary to defend either Dominator against attacking fighters remained an open question as the two aircraft flew northeast, paralleling the east coast of the Boso Peninsula. But it had already become clear that the Japanese were aware of the B-32s’ presence. Soon after the aircraft had passed over Miyake-jima the countermeasures officer in Klein’s Hobo Queen II, Second Lieutenant John R. Blackburn, had picked up the characteristic “whoop-whoop-whoop” sound of a Japanese early-warning radar in search mode—most probably the army site at Shirihama. Almost as soon as Blackburn heard the emission it changed to the steady hum that indicated the radar had detected the B-32, and the young officer immediately began jamming the signal. He was rewarded by the Japanese radar’s immediate return to search mode, but the respite didn’t last long. As the two Dominators turned east at 12:30 and crossed the coastline south of Chosi they separated to begin their initial photo runs; minutes later Blackburn picked up the ominous sound of gun-laying radar. He again immediately jammed the signal and dropped “rope,” but also keyed his intercom and said to Klein, seated just ahead of him, “something’s wrong here, they haven’t stopped the war yet.”13

  By this time John Anderson’s 578 was two or three miles away, just beginning a photo run. The aircraft’s countermeasures operator, Staff Sergeant Frederick C. Chevalier, had detected occasional gun-laying radar emissions, but none had lasted very long and the young airman had not needed to jam them. A veteran of fifteen missions in B-24s of the 90th Bomb Group, Chevalier wasn’t particularly concerned by the fact that his aircraft was being “painted”—indeed, he was relaxed enough to notice the extraordinary steel-blue color of the clear, unclouded sky above the Kanto region, a sky in which his aircraft and the other Dominator seemed to be the only things moving.14 Though Chevalier didn’t realize it at the moment, that beautiful and apparently empty sky was about to get dangerously crowded.

  AT OPPAMA, SADAMU KOMACHI and other pilots of the Yoko Ku were also gazing at the sky, though not in appreciation of its beauty.

  Shortly after John Blackburn in Hobo Queen II had begun jamming the Shirihama early-warning radar, the communications center at the navy base had apparently received telephonic warning that American aircraft were inbound toward the greater Tokyo region. This initial alert may actually have been caused by the appearance over the Yokohama area of the four F-7s of the 20th Recon Squadron, but the practical result was the same. The Japanese fighter pilots, several of whom had taken part in the previous day’s attacks on the four B-32s, were watching the sky for any sign of what they still considered to be enemy airplanes. They would not be hard to spot, given that the grounding of virtually all Japanese military aircraft as a result of the ceasefire order—or because holdout pilots were attempting to conserve fuel—meant that the only machines flying about in Japanese airspace were almost certain to be Allied.

  And, at about 1:00 in the afternoon the gathered Yoko Ku pilots spotted the telltale glint of sun reflecting off aluminum, so high above them—Komachi estimated its altitude at about 18,000 feet—that it could not be anything but an American bomber. The aircraft was clearly visible with the naked eye, and the apparent nonchalance with which it serenely cruised above war-battered Tokyo incensed Komachi. He later wrote that he “could not take it anymore” and, seething with frustration, he burst out, “I’ve got to go get them!” He ran to a nearby fighter—most probably a J2M Jack—fired up the engine and quickly taxied to Oppama’s main runway. Then, not waiting for any sort of clearance, he roared into the sky, followed by several of his comrades.15

  Much the same scene was playing out at Atsugi, which had apparently also received the warning of incoming Allied aircraft. Several pilots of the 302nd Air Group—men presumably as outraged as Komachi by the reappearance of enemy bombers over Tokyo—hurried to their aircraft and also charged aloft.

  The Japanese pilots who took to the air on August 18, whether from Atsugi or Oppama, had no intention of simply shepherding the American aircraft out of Japanese airspace. Their purpose was far more direct: they were fighter pilots, and they were on the hunt.

  THE FIRST B-32 CREWMAN to realize that something was seriously amiss was most probably John Blackburn. As Hobo Queen II pulled off its final photo run, the countermeasures officer picked up the emissions of another gun-laying radar, but this time the steady hum in Blackburn’s earphones indicated that the radar had already acquired them. As he began jamming the signal Japanese 120mm anti-aircraft guns sited between Chiba City and Chosi immediately opened fire on the Dominator. The tail gunner, Staff Sergeant J. R. Baker, called out that the bursts were at the same altitude and about 1,000 yards astern.16

  Seconds later another of the B-32’s gunners shouted over the intercom that he could see Japanese fighters taking off from a field to the south of the bomber’s track, and Klein banked the plane slightly to starboard so he could see them. The interceptors were clearly visible as they clawed for altitude, and Klein ordered his radio operator to contact Anderson and warn him that fighters were in the air. When there was no response from the other Dominator, Hobo Queen II’s pilot turned the B-32 southeast and headed for the sea.

  The big bomber had barely made it to the coast, however, when about twenty miles south of Chosi Sergeant Billy J. Osborne, the forward upper gunner, yelled, “there’s fighters coming in!”17 The first Japanese aircraft—a Zeke, most probably from the 302nd—bored in at Hobo Queen II from one o’clock high, firing as it came. Osborne slewed his turret around and sent thumb-sized .50-caliber rounds streaming toward the incoming fighter. The gunner and the plane’s copilot, First Lieutenant Glen W. Bowie, both saw the bullets hitting the forward fuselage and cockpit area of the Zeke, which suddenly rolled inverted and headed down at a steep angle, its engine emitting puffs of oily black smoke. Though neither man could follow the enemy fighter’s fall all the way to impact, Bowie later verified his gunner’s claim of a “definite” kill.18

  That presumed victory was only the start of Hobo Queen II’s fight, however. Over the next twenty-five minutes, ten or more Japanese fighters came at the B-32 from ahead, behind, and above. Fortunately, as soon as the first attacker had appeared Klein had put the Dominator into a fairly steep dive and opened the throttles to the stops, knowing that few single-engine aircraft would be able to keep up. He was right, and the bomber’s rapid acceleration—combined with the volume of defensive fire put out by her gunners—prevented the Japanese pilots from making more than one pass each and ultimately kept them from inflicting any damage on Hobo Queen II or any injuries to her crewmen. The only drawback to Klein�
��s defensive tactic was the stress it put on the Dominator’s airframe. The speed and steepness of the dive made the aircraft shake and buffet so much that at one point Blackburn leaned forward and shouted to Klein, “I think we’re going to come apart!” The B-32 remained intact, however, and at about 1,000 feet above the sea Klein leveled out and set a course for Okinawa, the Japanese fighters now miles behind and unable to catch up.19

  WHEN THE GLINTING SUN had first drawn Sadamu Komachi’s eye toward the high-flying American bomber it had clearly still been on a photo run, for it was flying from east to west from the direction of Kujukuri Beach, on the Pacific coast side of Chiba Prefecture, toward Tokyo. By the time Komachi and his compatriots had gotten their fighters airborne however, the aircraft—which Komachi believed was a B-29—had reversed course and was headed southeast toward the sea.

  Komachi was an extremely competent and highly experienced fighter pilot, and he’d been engaging multi-engine Allied aircraft since his time at Rabaul. One technique he’d used quite successfully was to fly far out in front of his intended target while at the same time gaining altitude, then make a snap turn and come back in from twelve o’clock high with all guns blazing. This sort of attack—which was the same tactic German Luftwaffe fighter pilots had often employed against Allied bombers over Europe—had two main advantages. First, the attacking pilot could concentrate his fire on the enemy bomber’s cockpit and the leading edges of its wings, thereby either killing the pilots or knocking out the engines. And second, because the attacker and his prey were flying toward each other, the high converging speeds made it difficult for the bomber’s gunners to keep the fighter in their sights as it flashed pass. While there was always the risk of a midair collision if the attacker misjudged his angle or was himself injured by enemy fire, the tactic could be highly effective when used by a formidable fighter pilot such as Komachi.

  As the veteran Japanese aviator raced to get himself into position in front of and above the lone American bomber, however, he ran into an unexpected obstacle: his fellow Japanese pilots. In their eagerness to engage the B-32 Komachi’s comrades—some of whom were coming off earlier attacks against Hobo Queen II—were launching attacks from twelve o’clock level, from both beams low, and from six o’clock high. The sky around the Dominator was thus filled with aircraft, making it highly likely that if Komachi employed his favored strategy he would run the very real risk of ramming one of the other Japanese interceptors. He pondered the situation for a moment as he flew above, parallel to, and slightly ahead of the American aircraft and then, characteristically, threw caution to the wind and wrenched his aircraft into a wing-over to begin his attack.20

  ALTHOUGH IT IS UNCLEAR why John Anderson did not respond to James Klein’s initial warning about the Japanese fighters, it is most probably because the pilot of 578 was already aware of the enemy aircraft. At about the same time that the men aboard Hobo Queen II spotted the Japanese interceptors taking off, John Houston—Anderson’s tail gunner—came on the intercom and said he saw fighters at six o’clock low, and they seemed to be gaining altitude quickly. One of the B-32’s other gunners asked what they should do, and from the nose turret Burton Keller responded, “You do the same thing we’ve always been told to do: if any of them come in pointing their noses at us, you fire away.”21

  Just minutes later, the gunners aboard 578 had more than enough reasons to “fire away.” The first to do so was tail gunner Houston. The planes he’d seen earlier had reached the Dominator’s altitude in what seemed just minutes, and three or four of the fighters rolled in on the bomber from his eleven o’clock, sweeping from his left to right. One of the Japanese aircraft came in higher than the others, its right wing slightly up and left wing slightly down, firing as it came. Houston could see the flashes of its guns, and he held his own fire until the fighter was so close he could hardly miss. When the attacker’s image filled his optical gunsight, Houston pulled the triggers on his twin .50s, and despite their slow cyclic rate they spewed out more than enough rounds to do the job. Houston saw his bullets chew into the fighter’s engine, cockpit area, and forward fuselage, and at about 100 feet behind the Dominator the attacker exploded, seeming to disintegrate completely before Houston’s eyes. The young gunner barely had time to exclaim “I got him!” over the intercom before turning his guns on yet another incoming fighter.22

  In the nose turret, Keller was finding it harder than it should have been to engage fighters coming in from twelve o’clock. Although his guns would hydraulically elevate and depress normally, he had to rotate the turret itself by turning an auxiliary hand crank. He therefore tried to determine the incoming fighter’s track, then cranked the turret into an area he knew the attacker would have to pass through and started firing the single operable .50-caliber machine gun just before the target filled his gunsight. He could not crank the turret fast enough to keep the fighter in the sight, however, and he later recalled that he was just trying to throw out rounds in the hope that his tracers would force attackers to “back off.”23

  Fortunately, things were going better for the top turret gunners. In the aft position Jimmie Smart had been “snap shooting” at enemy aircraft that flashed over the B-32 as they carried out beam attacks, but then concentrated his fire on a particular fighter that rolled in from three o’clock high. The plane seemed to hang in midair for a moment, its rounds flashing over the top of the Dominator, and Smart poured bullets into the left side of its fuselage. Rolling inverted, the fighter passed below the B-32 and as it disappeared from Smart’s view Clayworth, in the forward turret, yelled over the intercom that he’d seen the attacker explode.24

  It was at that moment that Sadamu Komachi rolled in on 578. The Japanese pilot screamed down almost vertically toward the B-32, opening fire with his 20mm cannon when the Dominator filled his gunsight. He could see his rounds pounding into the aircraft’s wings—as though, he later said, they were being sucked in—and as he flashed past he saw that one of the bomber’s engines was trailing a wispy stream of gray smoke.25 What he didn’t notice was that one of his rounds had shattered Jimmie Smart’s turret, sending jagged plexiglass shards into the young gunner’s forehead and temple. Smart immediately screamed “I’m hit!” and dropped from the shattered turret, startling Joe Lacharite and Tony Marchione. The two 20th Recon men had been standing with their backs to one another, looking out the small observation windows on opposite sides of the aircraft. They turned their heads toward Smart, now huddling on the fuselage floor barely ten feet in front of them and clutching his head, and then Joe turned back to look out the window on his side because a movement had caught his eye. To his horror, what he saw was a Japanese fighter coming right at him.26

  WHEN JOHN HOUSTON SIGHTED the Japanese fighters closing on 578’s tail, Joe Lacharite and Tony Marchione had been starting to stow the K-22 camera and its associated gear. Because of the problems with the camera’s mount and its electrical control box, Rupke, the photo officer, and not been able to operate the camera remotely from his position in the aircraft’s nose. As the B-32 had passed over its assigned photo targets Rupke had therefore simply used the intercom to tell Joe when to trip the camera’s shutter. Tony had been helping to steady the mount, and had assisted in changing the film magazine as needed. It wasn’t the ideal way to shoot aerial photos but it was better than nothing, and when the Dominator finished its final photo run, Joe mentioned to Tony that he thought they’d gotten some usable images.

  Despite the closed bulkhead door that separated Houston’s tail turret from the compartment where Joe and Tony were working, the two men could clearly hear the banging of the guns when Houston engaged the incoming fighters. Moreover, Smart’s top turret guns were all the more audible for being barely ten feet away. Neither man was particularly bothered by the sound of the big .50-calibers pumping out rounds or the acrid smell of gun powder—both were, after all, qualified aerial gunners themselves—though the reality that they could not actively help defend the aircraft in the
way that they had been trained to do would certainly have added to their anxiety and frustration.

  One way to contribute, however, was to help the men actually on the guns to locate targets they might not otherwise be able to see. Because 578’s ball turret was unmanned there was no way for the men in the operable turrets to know if an enemy fighter was coming in from beneath the aircraft. Tony and Joe were both hooked into the Dominator’s intercom system, of course, and by peering out the observation windows on either side of the fuselage they could spot those aircraft and call them out to the appropriate gunner. That was what the two men had been doing when the injured Jimmie Smart unexpectedly dropped from his damaged turret.

  The observation window Joe had been looking through was set into 578’s aft fuselage about twenty-eight inches above floor level. It was some two feet forward of, and three feet below, the leading edge of the Dominator’s starboard horizontal stabilizer. Roughly oval in shape and about thirty inches across at its widest point, the window was made of plexiglass and was intended as a way for crewmembers to scan the rear of the starboard wing, its two engines, and the main landing gear on that side. Directly below the window, right next to and just to the right of the belly entrance hatch that also served as the aircraft’s main camera position, was a smaller optical-glass port intended for use with an obliquely mounted aerial camera.

  Even as the image of the incoming Japanese fighter in the large observation window was registering in Joe’s mind, 7.7mm machine-gun rounds from a second, unseen fighter coming in from three o’clock low punched through the lower right corner of the small camera port, shattered the optical glass, and slammed into Joe. One bullet tore completely through his left leg just above the kneecap, exiting out the back of his thigh, and four others lodged in his right leg between the ankle and knee. The impact spun the photographer around, and he fell to the floor of the aircraft just forward of the small door leading back to the tail and Houston’s turret, blood already streaming from his mangled legs. The fall had jerked Joe’s intercom cord from the jack it had been plugged into and Tony, who had been kneeling on the folded-down settee and looking out the portside observation window set into the fuselage just above it, was following the track of an incoming Japanese fighter and was momentarily unaware that Joe had been hit. But Jimmie Smart, still lying beneath his turret and attempting to stop the bleeding from his head wounds, saw Joe sprawled on the floor and called out to Tony over the intercom.