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

by Bruce Gamble

  Rather than attack from the rear, Oki led his fighters around the unwavering B-17 to attack it from the front. The tactic was based on experience. Despite all the guns in a B-17, the forward quadrant was the weakest: aside from the upper turret, a typical B-17E/F had only two flexible .30-caliber machine guns in the nose, one for the bombardier, one for the navigator. Oki led his fighters well ahead of the B-17, providing ample separation before he initiated a frontal attack.

  By the time the Zeros were in position, only two minutes remained on the mapping run. But two minutes was a long time to endure coordinated attacks by multiple fighters, especially while flying straight and level. Knowing that it was “the dumbest thing you could do with a B-17,” Zeamer held the bomber on course while the Zeros attacked.

  As the chutai leader, Oki commenced the first head-on pass. “One whipped by my side window,” recalled Zeamer. This was probably Oki, who approached the B-17 from its eleven o’clock, flying straight at the bomber with a closing speed in excess of five hundred miles per hour. A collective report from the crew provided details: “A single-seat fighter made a distant pass from below at 11 o’clock and followed through in a right diving turn. Our tracers were seen entering the fuselage.”

  Oki’s first pass was his last. Vaporizing gasoline streamed from holes in a fuel tank—he was fortunate the Zero didn’t explode in a fireball—and he could not reenter the fight. Most accounts credit Zeamer for damaging the Zero, but this was almost impossible. Committed to the mapping run, Zeamer never altered course. The single gun he controlled was bolted in place to fire straight ahead, whereas Oki approached from a position thirty degrees to the left of Zeamer’s aiming point. The damage to the Hamp was likely the work of Joe Sarnoski, reputedly an excellent gunner; or perhaps Sergeant Able in the top turret put slugs into the lead Hamp.

  Oki’s fighter was disabled, leaving him no choice but to head home. Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Hiroshi Iwano, seeing his chutai leader in distress eighty miles from Buka, accompanied Oki to the airdrome. This further reduced the number of interceptors, but Oki or one of his pilots evidently radioed for help. By the time the next frontal attack began, a twin-engine fighter had joined the fray.

  Oki’s initial pass caused little damage to the B-17. Zeamer maintained his course in hopes of completing the mapping run, but about thirty seconds after Oki’s pass, a second frontal attack commenced. Numerous variations of what happened next have been published in books, magazine articles, and documentaries. Some details were invented by their writers in hyperbolic stories; others, as aviation historian and artist Jack Fellows puts it, “have evolved into a yarn laced with fuzzy recollection and wishful thinking over the passage of considerable time.”

  A little-known compilation of crew statements given on the day of the mission contains the most reliable details. An extract, published for the intelligence community approximately a month after the event, reveals that the second frontal attack overwhelmed the limited number of forward-firing guns.

  A half a minute [after the first pass], three enemy aircraft coordinated in a simultaneous attack from the front. A single-engine fighter attacked from slightly below our aircraft from 10 o’clock. His accurate fire wounded the bombardier, the pilots, the engineer, and extensively damaged our aircraft. The hydraulic system was destroyed, all flight instruments except the airspeed indicator were made inoperative, the control cables were damaged, the pilot’s rudder pedals were smashed and the oxygen bottles in the cockpit were holed and set on fire. In spite of his wounds, the bombardier effectively fired at this enemy aircraft until it burst into flames and disintegrated. Simultaneously, the navigator was firing at a single-engine fighter approaching from 2:30 o’clock and the pilot was firing a fixed, forward firing .50 caliber at a twin-engine fighter coming in from 11:30 o’clock.

  The twin-engine fighter was widely reported, but its origin remains a mystery. What mattered most, for the men in the forward section of the bomber, was the Japanese pilots’ accurate shooting. “One shell exploded behind my seat and ignited our oxygen system and hydraulic system,” remembered Zeamer. “Both of my wrists had been hit, and another 20mm went through my left knee and shattered it. My flight instruments were blown out of the panel and were hanging down by their wires. There was blood running down from my hands, which were slippery on the control wheel.”

  In excruciating pain, Zeamer had more than a hundred pieces of shrapnel and debris embedded in his legs. An artery in his wrist had been nicked, causing blood to spurt with every heartbeat. But the situation was even worse in the nose section. Sarnoski’s abdomen had been ripped open, and he had either a bullet or shrapnel hole in his neck. Johnston scrambled to assist him (one account has Johnston briefly sticking his index finger into Sarnoski’s neck to stop the flow of blood), but Sarnoski waved him off as the twin-engine fighter bored in.

  The extract of the crew report contains an unadorned depiction of the dying man’s courage under fire.

  Though mortally wounded, the bombardier, after destroying the first enemy aircraft, swung his gun on the twin-engine fighter. The pilot observed his tracers striking this enemy aircraft between the nose guns and the cockpit. The enemy aircraft commenced to smoke heavily, probably burning, before passing from view. An explosive shell from this twin engine aircraft burst in the nose, knocking both the bombardier and navigator back into the catwalk under the cockpit, and small caliber shells wounded the radio operator and holed the fin.

  During this attack, the engineer, also wounded in both legs, kept his guns firing in short bursts of 4 to 5 rounds, only to be constantly clearing them of repeated jams.

  The severity of damage caused by the twin-engine fighter suggests that a large caliber shell, possibly a 37mm, exploded in the nose section of the B-17. If so, the attacker may have been a Ki-45 Nick, certain models of which were equipped with such cannon. Zeamer’s description of the enemy plane’s nose armament, combined with a separate observation from the crew that the engine nacelles extended to the trailing edge of the wings, matched the characteristics of the Ki-45.

  The coordinated attack had caused mayhem aboard Old 666. Wind shrieked through holes in the bomber’s nose panels and fuselage; punctured oxygen bottles burned fiercely; the navigator had been wounded in the face; and the copilot, Lt. John T. Britton, was knocked unconscious with a head wound. Despite his own injuries, Zeamer refused to give up the controls. With the oxygen system destroyed, the crew faced hypoxia within moments, so he took immediate action. Although most of the flight instruments had been shot away, he rolled the huge airplane to the right and pushed the control column forward, sending the bomber into a steep dive. “I figured if we got hit one more time,” he later stated, “we’d be done.”

  The dive was so steep that the rate-of-descent indicator pegged at six thousand feet per minute. The altimeter had been destroyed at 18,200 feet, so Zeamer relied on instinct and judgment to begin his pullout. In what can only be described as an amazing feat of airmanship and determination, he physically hauled the bomber out of its rivet-shaking dive. The flight controls were not hydraulically boosted, which meant that Zeamer had to pull mightily on the control column to bring the nose up. Old 666 leveled off at six thousand feet, her dramatic plunge having convinced the Japanese that she was no longer a threat—some even believed the bomber had crashed. Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Suhiro Yamamoto reported erroneously that its wreckage was later found on Bougainville.

  But the bomber continued to fly on four good engines. The bad news was that it still had to cross five hundred miles of ocean before reaching safety. Disoriented and losing blood, sometimes in agony, at other times semiconscious, Zeamer grimly held the controls as he headed toward New Guinea. It was now about 0900, the sun still relatively low in the sky. The remaining Zeros stunted around the damaged B-17 in what the crew later described as “a Lufbery,” a compelling comment which indicates that the Japanese employed a maneuver known as hineri-komi (literally, “twisting in”). />
  The tactic involved multiple fighters in a looping tail chase. Upon seeing the maneuver for the first time, most Allied pilots called it a “Lufbery Circle,” referring to a World War I tactic named for French ace Raoul Lufbery. The Japanese adaptation puzzled Allied airmen, for it often seemed that they were merely performing the maneuver to taunt their enemy or show off. Perhaps, in the absence of Oki, his subordinates resorted to the hineri-komi as a fallback. Periodically, one of them would peel away from the circle and commence a gunnery run on the B-17, usually pressing in close. But the crew of Old 666 kept up their defensive fire, and the slicing attacks caused no additional damage.

  After forty-five minutes, the Hamps turned away and headed back to Buka. American gunners had hit three more, bringing the total number of damaged fighters to four. And thanks to the preservation of the kodochosho, some interesting statistics are available. Air Group 251’s seven participating Zeros expended about five hundred 20mm shells and more than seven hundred 7.7mm rounds during this intercept. Curiously, however, while Yamamoto emptied his ammunition canisters at the bomber, Koichi Terada, a pilot of the same rank, apparently never fired a shot.

  The kodochosho also confirms that no interceptors were shot down, despite the claims by Zeamer’s crew that five enemy fighters had been destroyed. Seven of the eight pilots later participated in the strike against Allied shipping at Lunga Point, the eighth being Yahiro, who had ditched with engine failure and was still awaiting rescue. (Ironically, Japanese losses during the afternoon strike were heavy. Twenty-eight fighters and dive-bombers failed to return, including Oki and Yamamoto.)

  Aboard the badly damaged bomber, Pugh left his tail gun position and moved forward to assist with the wounded. He found Sarnoski unconscious in the bloody nose compartment, pulled the bombardier clear, and then cradled the dying man’s head in his lap. A few minutes later, Sarnoski died from loss of blood, shock, or a combination of the two.

  Zeamer, also losing blood, refused to leave the pilot’s seat. “I don’t move until the mission is ended,” he told anyone who suggested otherwise. His stubbornness may have been his best defense. Had he relinquished the controls, he might have lapsed into unconsciousness. Zeamer seemed to will the plane back over the Solomon Sea, thereby keeping himself alive. Sergeant Able, although wounded in both legs, occupied the copilot’s seat to assist Zeamer throughout the long flight. Sergeants Dillman and Kendrick, the only others not wounded, moved about the aircraft providing first aid.

  Damaged by at least five cannon shells and more than 180 bullets, Old 666 droned across the ocean for another two and a half excruciating hours. No attempt was made to cross the Owen Stanley Mountains; instead, a revived John Britton took over the controls as they approached Dobodura. With the hydraulic system destroyed, neither the flaps nor the brakes would work, guaranteeing not only a hot landing but difficulty in stopping the plane safely on the runway. Despite all the pressure, Britton made one of the best landings of his life. “I just greased it in,” he recalled later. To stop the brakeless bomber, he performed a ground loop at the end of the dirt strip.

  Zeamer felt the bomber touch down, but he’d lost so much blood that he could see only a gray haze. He slumped over as personnel from the “meat wagon” arrived. When they came aboard, he thought he heard someone say, “Get the pilot last, he’s dead.” A few moments later, he felt himself being lifted from the bullet-scarred cockpit. Whisked to the field hospital in critical condition, he was stabilized overnight and then airlifted the next day to the main hospital in Port Moresby. After lingering on the edge for days he gradually recovered, but faced months of rehabilitation before he was finally released.

  At ADVON headquarters, Colonel Cooper considered the feats of Zeamer and Sarnoski deserving of the nation’s highest award for military valor—the Medal of Honor. General Whitehead endorsed both recommendations, which proceeded successfully up the chain of command and ultimately earned congressional approval. Zeamer received his medal from General Arnold at the Pentagon exactly seven months after the mission, while Sarnoski’s was presented posthumously to his widow in Richmond, Virginia. Each of the other crewmen aboard Old 666 received a Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for combat valor.

  Zeamer not only completed the mapping run, but he gave the 43rd Bomb Group bragging rights. With two Medals of Honor and seven Distinguished Service Crosses for a single mission, the pilot nobody wanted and his Eager Beavers became the most highly decorated combat crew in American history.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Big Feud

  ONE UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCE of the Zeamer mission was the resolution of a quarrel. For the past several months, Kenney had watched with guarded amusement as his two veteran heavy bomb groups, the 43rd and the 90th, competed with each other. Eventually the competition degenerated into a full-blown dispute, later coined “The Big Feud” by a correspondent for Yank magazine.

  The rivalry was inevitable. Virtually all military units are highly competitive. Within every branch of service, an almost compulsive need exists to demonstrate superiority over all challengers—both friends and foes. In aviation communities, the competition becomes especially fierce at the group and squadron levels, and even among individual pilots. Everyone wants to prove who’s best, whether the benchmark is flying, shooting, bombing, or some other skill set. When two or more units compete, there is no reward for second-best.

  In the Fifth Air Force (not counting the 380th Bomb Group, which was too new), the competition between the heavies was simple: the 43rd Group flew B-17s, while the 90th operated B-24s. The latter frequently boasted that its Liberators could fly faster and farther with the same payload than the Flying Fortresses, which was true. But the argument rang hollow.

  For starters, the B-17 was easy to fly, forgiving of mistakes, steady in formation, rugged in combat, and genuinely adored by its crews. The B-24, in comparison, had not earned such favor, a point the 90th Group could never argue. Soon after the group was formed in 1942, Charles Lindbergh, the famed transatlantic aviator, had made unflattering comments about the B-24 and publicly questioned its overall safety. The 90th Group, in fact, had just arrived in Hawaii. The group commander, collaborating with some of his senior officers, complained vocally about the B-24s and even demanded B-17s. Informed of this quasi-mutiny, General Arnold advised Kenney and the Seventh Air Force commander that a serious problem existed within the group. Several personnel, including the group commander and a squadron leader, were subsequently sacked.

  With a new commander in place, the 90th brought its B-24Ds to Australia in early November 1942. But the group seemed jinxed from the outset. First, a rash of nose gear failures grounded all forty-eight bombers. The group moved to Iron Range, where the first two missions were disastrous: four B-24s and thirty men were lost, including the new group commander, Col. Arthur W. Meehan. Kenney restricted the entire group from combat until the crews gained more experience in night flying and navigation. Even after the probation was lifted, the 90th continued to suffer an inordinate number of mishaps and operational losses.

  One crash that particularly affected the Allied cause occurred on the last day of April 1943. First Lieutenant Jindrich L. “Henry” Chovanec and his crew of the 321st Bomb Squadron, flying a B-24 named Czech’em, took off for a general reconnaissance flight. The mission also involved a supply drop to support Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) personnel near Bena Bena, a village in the New Guinea highlands. To help identify the drop site, thirty-four-year-old Flight Lt. Leigh G. Vial, RAAF, accompanied the crew. Unknown causes led to the crash of the Liberator in the mountains sixteen miles south of Bena Bena, killing all twelve souls on board. Vial, a coastwatcher known as “Golden Voice,” was an irreplaceable asset who had survived in the mountains above Lae for months while reporting on enemy activity. His death, by volunteering for what should have been a routine daylight event, was a difficult blow to the Allies.

  Five days after the fatal mis
hap, Whitehead accompanied Lt. Col. Arthur H. Rogers, in line to assume command of the 90th Group, on an armed reconnaissance mission over northern New Guinea. Concerned about the group’s record, Whitehead made no secret of the fact that he was aboard to evaluate Rogers. He got his chance. The weather was decent when the B-24 took off from Ward’s Strip outside Port Moresby, but conditions quickly deteriorated.

  Whitehead later described the results in a detailed report to Kenney:

  There was a layer of middle cloud and Rogers walked into it. He hit turbulent air and turned back and pulled out of it. Our gross weight at take-off was approximately 64,000 pounds. Despite his first experience in [the] turbulence, he pushed in on instruments again and hit extremely turbulent air. As soon as the turbulence began, he started a 180 degree turn. I moved up between the [seats] to see what went on. In a few seconds we had a rate of descent of 3,000 feet per minute and an indicated airspeed of 230 miles per hour. The copilot was obviously quite frightened but did cut the throttles to [idle]. I talked to Rogers, giving him his indicated air speed, his rate of descent, and kept repeating the old formula, “Center the needle and then center the ball.” He did this just before we hit an [updraft] that gave us a rate of ascent of a little over 3,000 feet per minute. We got out of it okay. Colonel Rogers is an experienced and, in my opinion, highly competent pilot. He demonstrated to me conclusively, however, that he could not handle the B-24 on instruments in turbulent air.

  Whitehead also referred to two other crews of the 90th that had encountered turbulence the same day, describing them as “a badly-scared lot” when they returned to Port Moresby—and the group had already been in-theater for six months.