As quickly as the bombers rolled to the sides of the runway, mechanics dragged them off to dispersal areas where they could be refueled and loaded with bombs. The pilots, meanwhile, assembled for their orders and a briefing given them by Colonel Eugene L. Eubank, commanding officer of the 19th Bombardment Group.
Several of the bombers had been fully fueled and loaded with bombs, but most of the Fortresses were still undergoing this servicing when the air base received warning of large enemy formations on the way. To protect the B-17s, they were ordered into the air at once. The effectiveness of the Zero as a strafer still burned brightly in the minds of the survivors, and it was all too easy to imagine the new bombers on the field being chopped to ribbons in the firing passes of the Mitsubishis. Five B-17Ds took off individually, and the first three airplanes that made it aloft headed for the Japanese beachhead at Vigan. These were piloted by Major O’Donnell, Captain E. L. Parsel, and Lieutenant G. R. Montgomery.
O’Donnell reached the invasion area ahead of the other two bombers, and immediately went into his bombing runs from the high altitude of 25,000 feet. From five miles above the ocean his crew excitedly pointed at—and rushed to attack—what they thought was the prize target of all, an enemy aircraft carrier. (As was noted earlier, the crews had reported consistently all their targets as warships or transports; the belief that the Zeros could only have come from aircraft carriers made it all too easy to “see” such a target when in reality the Japanese had deployed all their carriers elsewhere.)
O’Donnell and his crew went through one of the most frustrating “immediate attacks” experienced by any bomber crew. For 45 minutes Japanese antiaircraft blazed away at them, upsetting the aim of the bombardier and forcing new runs over the invasion force. The Fortress would roar in steady as a rock for another run, and faulty bomb release mechanisms would leave the men spitting curses as the bombs hung up in their racks. For 45 minutes (during which the “enemy aircraft carrier” mysteriously failed to send up defending fighters) O’Donnell returned doggedly to the attack, but the combination of Japanese flak and faulty equipment defeated him—none of his eight 600-pound bombs struck an enemy vessel.
Parsel tried his luck at half the altitude; he roared in at 12,500 feet against a warship which, from this lower height, his crew judged to be either a destroyer or a cruiser. Four 300-pound bombs slicing down from the Fortress produced only spuming columns of water instead of smoke as their target went unscathed. Parsel came back in for a second run and this time his crew shouted at a strike against a transport (the Japanese later denied any such hits, stating only that one transport had suffered a bomb exploding near the ship).
Montgomery in the third Fortress arrived on the scene with only one 600-pound bomb in his bays. The bomb fell harmlessly in the water near the transports.
The two remaining Fortresses got into the air from Clark Field at 0930 hours; Lieutenant G. E. Schaetzel headed for the Japanese invasion force unloading troops and supplies at Aparri. From five miles up, the airplane released its bombs carefully against a cluster of transports; the crew reported the bombs striking smack in the midst of the assembled vessels. They claimed several damaging hits, but again the attackers were in error, for no ships sustained damage. The attack this time brought added opposition from the Japanese. Zero fighters staging down from Formosa to cover the invasion forces intercepted vigorously, chopping up the Fortress in flanking attacks. The high altitude aided the B-17D in escaping its pursuers; Zero performance fell off at five miles while the turbosuperchargers of the American bomber enabled it to “come into its own.” Schaetzel managed to escape, and returned to San Marcelino.
The fifth bomber departing that morning from Clark Field was piloted by Colin Kelly. He had been instructed by Colonel Eubank to seek out and to attack a Japanese aircraft carrier (another!) that was reported to be steaming at high speed off Luzon’s northern coast. Kelly, with three 600-pound bombs aboard the Fortress, completed his search pattern, but without making any contact with the “reported carrier.” Finally an enemy vessel was sighted; his navigator, Lieutenant Joe M. Bean, sighted a “concentration of enemy ships”—officially reported as consisting of a 29,000-ton battleship of the Kongo class, six cruisers, ten destroyers, and 15 to 20 transports.
From this report emerged probably the most confused battle “documentation” in our military history; there was no battleship beneath Kelly’s Fortress, and the number of Japanese ships was grossly exaggerated. Official Japanese records of the campaign show clearly that there was in the Philippines area one light cruiser of the Nagara class, six destroyers, and four transports—a total of seven warships and four transports, not 17 warships and 20 transports.
Kelly swung his big bomber around into his attack run at 22,000 feet over the “battleship.” Only one bombing run was made, and Sergeant Meyer S. Levin released in train the three 600-pound bombs carried by the Fortress. Later the crew was to claim that two bombs had straddled their target, and that one bomb struck dead-center— “right down the stack,” as many newspapers wrote with enthusiasm. In their postmission briefings, the crew stated also that the “battleship” had been slammed to a stop dead in the water, that it trailed oil and was burning.
Actually, the light cruiser had not even been scratched by a bomb! During the run over the target, Kelly’s plane was unmolested by antiaircraft fire or fighters—indeed, the Japanese were unaware of the Fortress overhead until the bombs were whistling down to explode harmlessly in the sea.
So chaotic were conditions at air force headquarters that the official communiques of the events involving Kelly’s bomber (false to begin with) were distorted and swiftly expanded into a major victory for the United States. On December 10, datelined Manila, an Army communique claimed:
“One of our bombers late yesterday attacked a Japanese battleship of the Hiranuma 29,000-ton class, a capital ship, ten miles north of Luzon, and scored three direct hits and two very close alongside. When the bomber left the battleship was blazing fiercely.”
Note the claim that five bombs were dropped when Kelly’s Fortress actually carried only three. Note also the official claim that three hits were scored, instead of the one direct hit reported by the surviving crew members of Kelly’s bomber. How it was determined that the battleship was blazing fiercely is a mystery, since the light cruiser had never been struck at any time. Further compounding the confusion is the report of the battleship as being of the Hiranuma class; no such vessel as the Hiranuma ever existed in the Japanese fleet.
However, people in the United States were electrified with the news. Headlines screamed that a battleship had been bombed, set afire, and sunk.
The next day another Manila-datelined communique was issued:
“The Commanding General, Far Eastern Command, confirms the sinking of a 29,000-ton battleship yesterday by the American Army Air Forces, north of Luzon. This battleship is believed to be the 29,000-ton Haruna, or a vessel of the Haruna class.”
This was sweet news to a people whose sense of superiority had been so rudely shattered by the sweeping successes of the Japanese. It was a straw of hope and pride in an otherwise turbulent sea of crushing and humiliating defeat, and we made the most of it. Everyone took up Colin Kelly’s name; he was the national hero who had saved our honor and our pride, and in the process had smashed a capital ship of the enemy.
As the celebrations went on, the 29,330-ton Haruna (of the Kongo class) was steaming unharmed off Malaya, where it remained until December 18. _
The derision and scorn in Tokyo rose to new heights the day following when the United States Navy reported that one of its lumbering PBY Catalina flying boats had attacked and bombed successfully another Kongo class battleship. The Navy claimed that the battleship was left flaming and stopped dead in the water. The Catalina pilot stated that he felt it was impossible for the warship to remain afloat another 24 hours. The Navy, “cautious” in its claim because no one had actually seen the ship go down, listed the vess
el as “severely damaged and probably sunk.”
The ship under attack was actually the heavy cruiser Ashigara, then the flagship of the Japanese Third Fleet operating off Luzon. The vessel’s staff officer, Captain Kawakita Ishihara, made it painfully clear that the Catalina had never so much as scratched the paint on the Ashigara, let alone leaving it in flames.
As reports of the new “sinking” came in, Americans mushroomed Kelly’s exploit to fantastic proportions. Most people believed then, as they still do today, that Kelly had made a suicide dive into the “battleship.” The exact origin of this fable is difficult to place, but it might well have stemmed from the death of Lieutenant Marret, the pilot whose P-35 fighter was destroyed by the exploding Japanese transport earlier that day.
Marret’s death was not announced in the United States until December 20, when details were released to the effect that Marret had deliberately flown into the side of the enemy vessel. This was not the case, of course, but people at home were desperate to believe anything that reflected courage, sacrifice, and defeat inflicted upon the Japanese. Lieutenant Marret had exhibited the highest courage when he flew his old fighter plane, without self-sealing tanks, directly into the flashing gun muzzles of the Japanese. He gave up his life in combat for his country. It is regrettable, therefore, that he was erroneously reported as having made a “suicide dive.”
In the confusion that reigned in those early weeks of war and defeat, it is readily understandable that the public fused the meager details of the deaths of Colin Kelly and Sam Marret. For Marret was at the time the only pilot specifically reported as having sacrificed himself in a suicide crash. This appears to be the source of the legend of Kelly’s suicide dive.
Kelly’s death came from attack by Zero fighters. Early on the morning of December 10, 27 Zeros left their Tainan base on Formosa for a mission to cover the Philippines invasion. The fighters circled Clark Field, found no worthwhile targets remaining at the shattered American base, and swung over the coast to fly cover for the Vigan invasion force.
The fighters circled slowly at 18,000 feet when several pilots noticed three large water rings on the ocean surface —the marks of bomb explosions. From their height the Japanese pilots failed to see water geysers or columns, but the rings were unmistakable. The Japanese were astounded. The enemy had attacked and not a single Zero pilot had sighted a bomber! When finally the Fortress was seen it was far off, several thousand feet above the fighters and fleeing at high speed.
Three Zeros remained as invasion fleet cover, while two dozen fighters raced at full throttle after the American bomber. Among the pilots was Saburo Sakai; he and several other pilots drew within firing range of the Fortress when the bomber was about 60 miles from Clark Field. Suddenly, three Zeros (from the Kaohsiung Wing which earlier that day had destroyed Nichols Field) sped against the American plane in a head-on attack, but without noticeable effect.
Seven fighters of the Tainan Wing, including Sakai’s plane, then rushed at the Fortress. Each pilot peeled off from a loose formation and made a diving firing pass from above and behind. By the time the ten fighters had completed their runs the bomber was almost over Clark Field. The Japanese pilots found it hard to believe what they saw—they had poured bullets and cannon shells into the Fortress, and apparently without effect. By now it should have been flaming wreckage, but the big airplane flew on, seemingly unperturbed by its attackers.
The Fortress slipped into a shallow dive, picking up speed as it raced for safety within a thick overcast. While the other fighters milled around far behind the bomber, Sakai, followed by two Zeros, pushed over into full power dives. Sakai slipped beneath the Fortress and then raced in from underneath and to the rear.
Unknown to the Japanese pilot, the B-17’s radioman had left his gun position within the bathtub beneath the Fortress; Sakai’s approach went unnoticed by the crew. The Americans’ first warning came with the shuddering impact and explosions of bullets and cannon shells within the fuselage. Kelly slammed rudder back and forth to fishtail the big airplane and give his waist gunners a crack at the Japanese fighter, but it was too late. Sakai watched big chunks of metal explode off the right wing, and then a thin white film trailed behind the plane. The Zero bored in, firing short bursts, and then, suddenly, flame licked within the fuselage.
His ammunition exhausted, Sakai rolled away to one side to permit another fighter to close against the target. But the effort was wasted; the big airplane was doomed. The flames spread swiftly and the second Zero pulled up in a steep climb, the pilot half-rolling to watch the diving Fortress.
Sakai followed the burning airplane as it rushed earthward, amazed to see the wings remain on an even keel. Abruptly three dark objects sailed into view—crewmen bailing out, their chutes opening almost immediately. The next moment the burning airplane flashed out of sight within the heavy clouds.
Reports which were later circulated in this country to the effect that the Zero fighters had machine-gunned the parachuting crew members proved no more valid than the claim that a warship believed to be the Haruna had been sunk through Kelly’s “suicide dive.” Only three men went out of the Fortress while it was still above the clouds, and they fell quickly within the rolling gray masses. Sakai was the only Zero pilot near the bomber when the men bailed out, and he had exhausted his ammunition. No Japanese fighter went beneath the clouds at this time of the day—as we shall see.
During the morning takeoffs from Clark Field, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Kurtz was present when Colonel Eubank briefed Colin Kelly on his mission. Kurtz remembered Kelly as being unusually tired. His clothes were grimy and grease-stained; apparently he had assisted his crew in preparing the Fortress for flight. He had flown all night to reach Clark Field, and without any interval for rest was preparing for the combat mission. Kurtz was in the Clark Field tower to handle the signal gun lights when the bombers of O’Donnell’s 14th Squadron took to the air.
Shortly past twelve noon, Kurtz heard the sudden engine roar of a B-17. From the sound, the bomber was approaching swiftly, perhaps even in a dive. For several seconds, however, Kurtz (a highly skilled Fortress pilot himself) could see nothing above him but the thick overcast.
Suddenly, off in the distance, Kurtz saw the white silk of a parachute blossom into an open canopy, just below the cloud layer. Several more chutes appeared against the dark gray clouds, one after the other.
Then, farther out, a dark object streaked from the clouds and plunged into the ground.
Kurtz did not discover until much later that day that it was Kelly’s Fortress that had crashed. This was the only B-17 lost on December 10. (This established beyond question that Sakai was in fact the Zero pilot who set afire Kelly’s bomber. Only one Fortress was lost, and only one Japanese pilot claimed a probable kill—and over Clark Field. The pieces slid together neatly.)
More than ten years after the war, Frank Kurtz and Saburo Sakai met in Tokyo, where they conferred on the events that had transpired at Clark Field so many years before....
Now we return to the Flying Fortress immediately after its bombing strike against the Japanese warship. Inside the airplane as it sped from the scene, the gunners remained at their weapons; an attack by fighters could come at any moment.
We know already the details of the firing passes made by the seven fighters of the Tainan Wing and the three Zeros of the Kaohsiung Wing; these did little harm to the Fortress.
The last firing pass was followed by a lull in the battle. The milling Zeros fell far behind the bomber as Kelly approached Clark Field. It was at this moment that the radio operator, who manned the single gun in the bathtub position, left his post. He returned to the radio compartment to receive landing instructions from the Clark Field tower.
And just then Sakai struck from below and to the rear, unnoticed by the bomber crew until he opened fire with his two machine guns and two 20-mm. cannon.
Streams of tracer bullets and exploding cannon shells ripped through the Fortress. The le
ad and steel raked the Fortress viciously from nose to tail; Sakai was an excellent marksman and made the most of his ammunition. The instrument panel before the two pilots erupted in a deadly spray of shattered glass and metal. Bullets drummed along the thin skin like hail, and the heavy bomber shuddered as the cannon shells gouged big tears in the fuselage and wings. Just above and behind the cockpit the fuselage skin was ripped to twisted shreds, and the gunnery commander’s Plexiglas dome shattered, the pieces whipping away in the howling wind. Then a thin film, either smoke or spraying fuel, leaped into existence from the right wing.
The Zero fighter closed in to pointblank range. Again the staccato, hammering bursts ripped into the fuselage and, at the left waist gun position, Tech Sergeant William J. Delehanty spun wildly away from his machine gun. Blood pulsed darkly from his body, draining his life swiftly from multiple wounds. A booming explosion tore through the bomber. A cannon shell had exploded the low-pressure oxygen tanks in the radio compartment; within moments the empty bomb bay was the scene of crackling flames.
Sheets of fire spread rapidly from the ruptured oxygen tanks. Acrid fumes swirled thickly through the airplane; it might be only seconds before the entire Fortress disappeared in a single flaming blast. Yet they were still under attack; abruptly, the shuddering blows from the Japanese fighter ended.
In the cockpit Colin Kelly had only one choice. He barked out the order on the intercom for the crew to bail out at once. Kelly personally faced a terrible decision. Flames curled and licked about his feet. Unless he blew open the escape hatch above him and got out—at once —he might be caught in the fiery explosion that threatened to engulf the diving Fortress. If that were to happen, he would be roasted in his seat like a moth in a flaming cocoon.
The Ragged, Rugged Warriors Page 16