Target: Rabaul: The Allied Siege of Japan's Most Infamous Stronghold, March 1943 - August 1945

by Bruce Gamble

  As the war progressed, Kenney’s standing grew. When the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced an important conference in Washington, MacArthur sent Kenney as the senior envoy from SOWESPAC. Other GHQ staff, including Sutherland, would accompany Kenney to the event, billed as the Pacific Military Conference. Before the trip could get underway, however, Allied intelligence reported the formation of a large Japanese convoy at Rabaul. Kenney and his deputy commander, Brig. Gen. Ennis C. Whitehead, spent the next few days planning an attack on the convoy. The outcome in the Bismarck Sea was total victory, and Kenney’s reputation soared because much of the damage was achieved by his modified commerce destroyers. The low-level attackers had first shredded the enemy ships with machine-gun bullets, then skipped bombs into their hulls at point-blank range.

  The battle was still winding down as the conference attendees prepared to leave Brisbane. By that time the outcome was assured, so Kenney woke MacArthur at 0300 on March 4 to inform him of the spectacular results. Despite the early hour, MacArthur was jubilant. He immediately drafted a congratulatory message to the air units: “It cannot fail to go down in history as one of the most complete and annihilating combats of all time,” he wrote. “My pride and satisfaction in you all is boundless.”

  The words of praise from MacArthur were profound. By the time the conference delegates landed in Hawaii on March 6, news of the great victory preceded them. Although several GHQ staff were aboard the aircraft, the welcome committee at Hickam Field was there for Kenney. Among them, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz came out to shake Kenney’s hand and learn more about the battle.

  Kenney soon discovered, however, that some of his hosts were skeptical of the published claims. On March 7, MacArthur had issued an official GHQ communiqué stating that the Battle of the Bismarck Sea had cost the Japanese three light cruisers, seven destroyers, twelve transports, ninety-five planes, and fifteen thousand troops. The figures almost certainly came from Kenney, based on unconfirmed reports from various squadrons during the early stages of the battle. Kenney habitually exaggerated his achievements—but he outdid himself on this occasion. Moreover, he refused to give ground. If challenged, he waved copies of “operations reports” as proof that the numbers were accurate.

  What Kenney didn’t realize was that the victory needed no embellishment. In the wake of the U.S. Navy’s triumph at Midway nine months earlier, good news had been in short supply across the home front. The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was therefore hyped as one of the greatest victories of the war. In addition to receiving credit for the outcome, Kenney enjoyed a boost in status because of his innovative tactics.

  After two days in Hawaii, Kenney and his entourage continued their trip, with overnight stops in California and Ohio, before reaching Washington on the afternoon of March 10. Their timing was perfect. Newspaper headlines across the country hailed the recent victory, and Kenney allowed himself to enjoy the attention briefly. “I’m a big shot,” he confided in his diary, “for a while anyhow.”

  When the conference began the next morning, Kenney discovered that he was surrounded by heavier brass.* All four service chiefs—Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold (U.S. Army Air Forces), Gen. George C. Marshall (U.S. Army), Adm. Ernest J. King (U.S. Navy), and Adm. William D. Leahy (Chief of Staff)—attended the opening session. Several representatives from the South Pacific were also present to assure that Vice Adm. William F. “Bull” Halsey, commander of the South Pacific Area (SOPAC), got an appropriate slice of the procurement pie.

  After a few opening remarks, the Joint Chiefs departed for their various offices, leaving the real work of the conference to their high-ranking subordinates. Kenney discovered that his Bismarck Sea fame meant little to these underlings, who seemed to take satisfaction in denying his requests for more men, airplanes, and supplies. Kenney wasn’t the only frustrated commander. The Germany-first policy, agreed upon by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill a year earlier, had severely restricted the pipelines to the Pacific. None of the commanders in the theater, including MacArthur, had been able to obtain more than a trickle of equipment, weapons, or personnel. This was precisely why MacArthur sent Kenney to Washington: the conference presented the best opportunity for the Pacific commanders to voice their collective needs. If Kenney hoped to successfully prosecute the air war in the Southwest Pacific Area, he would have to argue, cajole, beg, borrow, or steal whatever he could get. As the negotiating dragged on, the pressure increased dramatically.

  By the end of the second day, Kenney was fed up with all the politicking that slowed the acquisition process. He wasn’t naive—one did not reach flag rank without awareness that favoritism occurred at various levels of the army hierarchy—but he was amazed at the amount of political maneuvering that infected the War Department. That night, he wrote in his diary:

  Judge [Robert P.] Patterson, Assistant Secretary of War … is definitely on my side and wants to help in any way to get me some aircraft. He even offered to take the matter up with the President. I asked him not to as I don’t want to go over Arnold’s head unless I can’t get anything any other way. Assist. Secretary for Air [Robert A.] Lovett and [Maj. Gen.] Oliver Echols would both like to help out too but have to take orders from Arnold, who in turn has to deal with the JCS, who get orders from the Combined Chiefs of Staff with the President and Winston Churchill also concerned. Once in a while the Russians put their demands in the pot with threats to get out if they are not met. No wonder Napoleon said he’d rather fight Allies than any single opponent.*

  Despite his best attempts, Kenney continued to be stonewalled. “Everyone really stubborn about giving me airplanes, even replacements for my losses,” he noted after the third day of the conference. He tried every angle, even issuing a stern warning that the Fifth Air Force would be “run out of New Guinea” without adequate support, but his arguments were ignored. Galled by the petty rivalries and personal ambitions of the second-tier flag officers, Kenney observed army and navy officers clashing repeatedly, and concluded that it was nearly “impossible” for the JCS to reach a decision. They tended to back their assistants, who couldn’t agree on anything, which put the problem back on the Joint Chiefs.

  Kenney finally managed to score a few points. During a meeting in Arnold’s office, Kenney requested that any B-25s allotted to SOWESPAC undergo factory modifications to the same specifications as his commerce destroyers. A couple of supply types from the Material Division snorted at this, and advised Arnold that such modifications were not only “impractical,” but they would “disturb the balance of the airplane and make it almost impossible to fly.” Kenney pointed out that twelve B-25s, field-modified in Australia, had “ruined the Japs” in the Bismarck Sea. Arnold not only tossed the stuffed shirts out of his office, but told them angrily to “quit arguing.”

  Despite this small victory, Kenney still struggled to get the planes, personnel, spare parts, and supplies he needed. He decided that if his victory in the Bismarck Sea didn’t count for much inside the War Department, he would take advantage of his newfound fame outside the conference rooms. Opportunities in the public sector abounded. During his stay in Washington he hobnobbed with some of the most influential people in America, including a luncheon on March 14 with publishers Henry and Clare Boothe Luce. The next evening, Kenney dined with Arde Bulova, chairman of the famous watch company. Kenney asked Bulova to donate one hundred gold watches, explaining that they would be given to outstanding crew chiefs, who didn’t qualify for the combat medals that fliers received. Bulova not only agreed, but added personalized watches for Kenney, MacArthur, and their wives. (Delivered a few days later, Kenney’s watch was inscribed: “To Buccaneer, as a token of my admiration and respect, Arde Bulova.”)

  The public events provided momentum. On March 17, Kenney received the mother of all invitations: to visit the White House. He and Sutherland enjoyed a brief chat with Roosevelt, who listened raptly to the story of the Bismarck Sea. The president, who had undoubtedly been
receiving details about the conference, asked Kenney if he was having any luck procuring planes. Using a common colloquialism of the day, Kenney told him “no soap.”

  The official visit soon ended, but a few minutes later Kenney alone was called back to the Oval Office. Roosevelt had instructed his military secretary, Gen. Edwin M. “Pa” Watson, to clear several appointments. Roosevelt gave Kenney his undivided attention for an hour. The opportunity was beyond Kenney’s wildest hopes. Roosevelt asked for a detailed briefing on SOWESPAC, which Kenney enthusiastically provided—emphasizing the crucial, still-evolving role of air power. He found the president easy to talk to, and “surprisingly familiar with the geography of that part of the world.” When Kenney finished, Roosevelt smiled and pointed to a tablet, saying: “Write down on this pad what you need. Be reasonable about it, and I’ll see what I can do, even if I have to argue with the whole British Empire about it.”

  Kenney left the meeting hugely impressed. “The Roosevelt charm is no myth,” he wrote. “I believe he is going to get me some airplanes.”

  Kenney was right. A few days later, Roosevelt called Arnold into the Oval Office for a discussion. Of equal importance, Kenney was featured on the March 22 front cover of Life, America’s most popular weekly magazine. Henry Luce, the magazine’s editor, described Kenney as “one of the great aerial tacticians of the war … successful in the South Pacific in spite of a relatively small number of planes.” That same day, Arnold sent for Kenney and informed him that he had “squeezed everything dry” to give SOWESPAC more planes. The Fifth Air Force would get another heavy bomb group, two medium bomb groups, two fighter groups, a new troop carrier group, and assorted “odds and ends.” Justifiably proud, Kenney gave a nod to his Pacific theater rivals. “SOPAC will have to get some aircraft too to keep peace in the family,” he noted, “but I’m supposed to get the real increase.”

  Although Kenney expected to see the Fifth Air Force grow by five hundred aircraft, the challenge would be integrating mismatched types. For example, one promised fighter group was equipped with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, a massive single-engine aircraft that, according to Kenney, “no one else wanted.” The other unit flew the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, a twin-engine fighter that Kenney was much more familiar with. The two aircraft used completely different engines and had no structural parts in common; therefore, spare parts and maintenance could not be shared. But Kenney was a realist. Having put so much effort into acquiring whatever he could get, he jumped at the chance to take the P-47 outfit, the 348th Fighter Group, off someone else’s hands.

  On March 25, Kenney was back in the White House, this time for a solemn event. Two months earlier, Brig. Gen. Kenneth N. Walker had participated in a daylight bombing raid on Rabaul, despite Kenney’s repeated orders to stop flying combat missions. The head of V Bomber Command, Walker had further risked censure by altering Kenney’s strike plan from a dawn attack to a daylight raid. Kenney was infuriated to learn that his subordinate had violated two separate orders, and subsequently informed MacArthur that he was not only going to reprimand Walker, but suspend him for a couple of weeks. Then came word that Walker’s B-17 had not returned from the mission. After an exhaustive search turned up no sign of the bomber or its crew, the focus on Walker shifted from punishment to appreciation. MacArthur recommended him for a Medal of Honor, which Congress approved on March 11. Two weeks later, Kenney attended the ceremony in the Oval Office and watched Roosevelt give the medal posthumously to Walker’s oldest son. Impressed with the president’s sincerity and kindness in putting the teenager at ease, Kenney noted in his diary that “FDR really did a swell job.”

  After the presentation, Roosevelt asked Kenney to stay behind. He was eager to know whether Kenney was satisfied with the proposed aircraft arrangement. Kenney answered truthfully that he’d always want additional planes, even if he “got a million more.” Careful not to sound ungrateful, Kenney reassured the president that he was pleased about the planes he’d been promised. Chuckling at this, Roosevelt replied: “I’ll be watching [for] the results.”

  Kenney undoubtedly felt immense satisfaction after his second meeting with the president, but the following day brought unsettling news from Arnold. Ten thousand miles away, the man who had replaced Walker had gone missing. After climbing aboard a B-17 at Port Moresby for a reconnaissance flight on the morning of March 26, Brig. Gen. Howard K. Ramey and his crew had vanished. That it happened on the same day as Walker’s posthumous ceremony (it was still March 25 in Washington) was downright bizarre. “Ramey’s loss a bad one,” Kenney wrote that night. “Bomber command needs a good steady hand to keep their heads up and morale high. Their losses are higher than any other outfit, and when a plane goes down it takes a big crew with it.”

  The next day, Kenney requested Col. John H. “Big Jim” Davies, an old hand in New Guinea and a former commander of the 3rd Bomb Group, as Ramey’s replacement. He then wired Brigadier General Whitehead, who commanded the Advanced Echelon (ADVON) at Port Morseby, and instructed him to take over V Bomber Command for the interim.

  Ramey’s disappearance clouded what had otherwise been a highly successful trip. Kenney had visited twice with President Roosevelt and was featured on the oversize cover of Life magazine. For a short time, he was a celebrity. But those were niceties. Kenney had traveled to Washington for one reason: to obtain more airplanes, personnel, and the other assets necessary to fight the Japanese. The outcome of the conference, thanks to the president’s influence, had exceeded Kenney’s expectations. Of at least equal importance, he had improved his standing with the head of the army air forces, Hap Arnold.

  In the months and years to come, the benefits of the long trip to Washington would help Kenney win the air war in his far-flung corner of the Pacific.

  *The Pentagon was not yet operational. The five-sided monstrosity had been completed just two months earlier, and the War Department still worked out of cramped offices in the Munitions Building on Constitution Avenue.

  *Lovett’s official title was Undersecretary of War for Air. Echols, the chief procurement officer for the Army Air Forces, was primarily responsible for the phenomenal increase in the production of aircraft during World War II.

  CHAPTER 2

  Steppingstones: The Elkton Plan

  WHILE KENNEY WORKED on obtaining planes and personnel, Sutherland was responsible for presenting MacArthur’s strategic plans for the coming year to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The stakes were high, but Sutherland enjoyed MacArthur’s absolute confidence, was authorized to open and read all his incoming mail and messages (even those marked “Eyes Only”), and answered most of them in MacArthur’s stead. For all practical purposes, Sutherland was MacArthur, or at least his alter ego in GHQ—an arrangement that served both men equally. As far as the Joint Chiefs were concerned, Sutherland’s presence at the conference carried the same weight as if MacArthur himself were there.

  The strategic plans that Sutherland would present on behalf of GHQ could be traced back some thirteen months. In January 1942, mere weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral King had begun pressing for a counteroffensive in the Pacific theater. King’s persistence eventually got results. On February 1, two carrier groups were sent from Hawaii to attack Japanese facilities in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. Although the raids caused little material damage, they embarrassed Imperial General Headquarters. Shortly thereafter, King authorized a third task force to venture deep into enemy waters for a strike against Rabaul. That effort, scheduled for the morning of February 21, was called off after Japanese flying boats discovered USS Lexington and Task Force 11 four hundred miles from Rabaul.

  Another opportunity to hurt the Japanese arose a few weeks later, resulting in a highly successful strike by the combined air groups of Lexington and Yorktown. On the morning of March 10, the aircraft crossed the Owen Stanley Mountains and surprised a Japanese invasion fleet at Lae, sinking three big transports and damaging several warships. In addition to giving the home front a
much-needed morale boost, the attack caused Tokyo more embarrassment.

  One key to the raid’s success was an intelligence breakthrough. Partial decryption of intercepted messages, sent via the Imperial Navy’s primary code (labeled JN-25 by the Allies), yielded the information needed to plan and execute a successful attack. Furthermore, the important role played by cryptanalysis led to a renewed frenzy in code-breaking efforts over the next several weeks.

  The art of creating intelligence reports based on analyzing decrypted intercepts, known as “Ultra,” evolved rapidly. By mid-April 1942, the Allies pieced together the details and name of a major offensive. With the dual-pronged MO Operation, the Japanese planned to invade Port Moresby and the southern Solomon Islands in early May. But Ultra enabled Allied naval units and land-based bombers to intervene, culminating in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Although a tactical draw, the historic clash on May 7-8 forced the Japanese to cancel the invasion of Port Moresby. The last Australian outpost in New Guinea was saved.

  Within a month, further refinement of Ultra aided Admiral Nimitz’s triumph over the Kido Butai, Japan’s mobile carrier striking force, at Midway. Mere days after that decisive victory, MacArthur surprised Washington by requesting permission to launch an offensive against Rabaul.

  As later described in the U.S. Army’s official history of the war, MacArthur not only hoped to capitalize on the victory at Midway, but he intended to secure additional assets.

  The smoke of battle had scarcely cleared when General MacArthur took the center of the stage with an urgent appeal for an immediate offensive to exploit the opportunity presented by the Japanese defeat. What he had in mind was … a full-scale assault against New Britain and New Ireland to gain control of Rabaul and the strategic Bismarck Archipelago. If his superiors in Washington would give him, in addition to the three divisions he already had, a division trained for amphibious operations (presumably marines) and the two carriers he had asked for so often, he was ready, he announced, to move out immediately. With confidence, he predicted he would quickly recapture the Bismarcks and force the Japanese back to Truk, 700 miles away, thus winning “manifold strategic advantages both defensive and offensive” and making “further potential exploitation immediately possible.”