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

by Bruce Gamble

  Astonished by the 90th’s dismal safety record, Whitehead concluded: “The crash at Bena Bena, the loss of twenty-four crews since the 90th Group came over here—with only five known to have been shot down and about an equal number known to have been killed in crashes, with the others just plain missing—and this episode the day before yesterday when I was with what is probably the most experienced crew in the 90th Group, have convinced me that we are taking these B-24 losses because the crews are barging in on instruments at medium and higher altitudes.”

  The 43rd Bomb Group, by contrast, had established an admirable combat record. Kenney particularly adored the 63rd Bomb Squadron, previously commanded by his protégé, Bill Benn, whose crews had perfected the art of skip-bombing. There was no getting around the fact that Benn and Ken McCullar, both now deceased, were two of his favorite pilots. This virtually guaranteed that neither the 63rd Squadron nor the 43rd Group would be replaced at the top of Kenney’s A-list, regardless of outside influences.

  The feud developed in mid-May following an amusing faux pas. At the conclusion of a solo reconnaissance mission, the crew of a 90th Group Liberator reported “a convoy of around thirty vessels in the Vitiaz Strait.” This was an important sighting, but no other intelligence reports supported it. Therefore, a B-17 from the 43rd went out to investigate. The crew’s sarcastic report: “The presence of the convoy of rocks in the Vitiaz Strait as reported by a recco plane of the 90th Bombardment Group has now been confirmed.” The Liberator crew had been tricked by a classic illusion. A formation of rocks and shoals in the Vitiaz Strait looked like a convoy underway, especially from high altitude, because the currents flowing around the rocks resembled ships’ wakes.

  A few days after the incident, the 43rd Group’s officers received an invitation to dine with their 90th Group counterparts. The enticement, recalled Kenney, was a rumor that the hosts had obtained “several cases of Aussie beer.” As the caravan of 43rd Group vehicles snaked up the road toward the rival group’s club, the riders were incensed by the sight of an old-fashioned outhouse, sitting off by itself, with a large sign on the roof: “Headquarters, 43rd Bombardment Group.”

  During the meal, the visitors said nary a word about the offending display. Instead they enjoyed the food, drank plenty of beer, graciously thanked their hosts, and left. Retaliation came the next morning. With a throaty roar, a B-17 swooped low over the hill and shot up the ersatz latrine with incendiaries, setting it ablaze.

  At least that’s the story Kenney loved to tell, although he clamped down on the feud before it got beyond control. Contacting the senior staff of both groups, Kenney told them that he had “seen nothing, heard nothing, and knew nothing,” but made it clear that he would tolerate no further shenanigans that involved shooting things or setting them on fire.

  That summer, new developments sparked a renewal of The Big Feud. With two squadrons in the 43rd Bomb Group transitioning to B-24s, the two groups were more evenly matched. This placed an even greater emphasis on performance. During the month of June, for example, the 43rd flew more total sorties than the 90th (170 versus 142), but the latter amassed two hundred more combat hours; therefore neither group could lay claim to outperforming the other.

  Another change, one that dramatically affected the disposition of the 90th, occurred when Art Rogers assumed command on July 11. His predecessor, Col. Ralph E. “Zipper” Koon, was a paternal figure who guided the group through its adolescence. Rogers’s demeanor had a polarizing effect. According to historian John Alcorn: “[The group] needed a firebrand, and that’s what it got. Rogers was by no means universally liked and respected. Some saw him as a tough, no nonsense leader who they would follow in the Valley of the Shadow of Death if the occasion demanded. Others held him in contempt as a glory-seeking martinet, full of bombast and noise. But few were neutral about him, and most would agree that he was a capable pilot. General Kenney saw him as just what the doctor ordered.”

  A few days after Rogers assumed command, a name was proposed for the group. According to various histories, 2nd Lt. Bernard Stoecklein suggested “Jolly Rogers,” which the new commander endorsed enthusiastically. Creative minds quickly settled on a huge, stylized skull-and-crossbones motif to adorn the twin vertical stabilizers of the B-24s.

  It would never do to have one group sport a new name while the other remained anonymous, so the 43rd chose a new name of its own. The exact origin is still debated. In his 1949 autobiography, Kenney claimed that the name honored him, and was pitched by his former aide in late 1942: “Bill Benn says the 43rd Group want to call themselves the Kensmen and have I any objection,” Kenney wrote in his diary on November 13. “Told him no, that I felt highly honored.”

  An intelligence officer wrote a different account in early 1944. Captain John E. Peterson penned a story called “The Big Feud” that found its way into the group’s 436-page official history. Peterson reveals that in July 1943, “a couple of correspondents suggested the outfit be named for the ace of all bomber aces, Major Ken McCullar, and so came into being the name ‘Ken’s Men.’”

  McCullar was a logical namesake, far and away the group’s most famous pilot—and a dead hero to boot. A case could even be made that “Ken’s Men” honored both McCullar and the late Ken Walker, who were popular among the enlisted men. Nevertheless, many veterans of the group have supported Kenney’s claim over the years. He was equally popular, and he genuinely cared about the morale of his men. Furthermore, he spent considerable effort to publicly recognize their achievements.

  Both groups had names to be proud of. But the 90th Bomb Group upped the ante. Borrowing from a statement Kenney made during his trip to Washington, where he announced that he had “the best damn air force in the world,” the Jolly Rogers put up a wooden sign at the entrance to their camp proclaiming them to be “The Best Damn Heavy Bomb Group in the World.” Naturally this did not sit well with the Ken’s Men. Heeding the general’s warning not to shoot up any more government property, members of the 43rd Group injected paint into old light bulbs and went on a jeep raid. Roaring through the 90th Group’s camp, they splattered the sign and other targets with their homemade “paint grenades.” The Jolly Rogers retaliated by ripping down the “Ken’s Men” sign, after which a man in the 43rd deliberately crashed a truck into the Jolly Rogers sign.

  Captain Peterson fired a parting shot. In his article about the feud, which was also distributed to the 90th Group, he wrote: “Buy a Jolly Pop, Lolly Pop, then when you grow up, you too can join the Jolly Rogers.”

  The squabbles diminished when the Ken’s Men decided to let their record do the talking. Their daring skip-bombing raids had been described in numerous magazine articles and newspaper accounts, and they also boasted two Medal of Honor recipients, Zeamer and Sarnoski. The Jolly Rogers, for all their hyperbole, could not match such glory. But for V Bomber Command, there was an important advantage to the feud. “Neither outfit dares to mess up over the target, lest they be laughed off this emerald isle,” wrote Peterson. “As a result, only Tojo is taking it on the chin.”

  Years later, Kenney added his own perspective: “[S]illy little things like that, which now sound like a species of insanity, were wonderful incentives to morale and set up a spirit of competition and a desire to outdo the rival organization that meant more hits on the targets, a quicker end to the war, and thereby a saving of American lives.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Wewak

  IN MID-1943, ALLIED forces under General MacArthur began preparations for the capture or neutralization of enemy strongholds along New Guinea’s coast. Before those operations could proceed, however, Kenney would have to achieve aerial supremacy over a major portion of the world’s second largest island.

  The task would not be easy. In mid-1943, the Japanese still held much of the territory acquired during the 1942 Southern Offensive, and they fiercely opposed the inevitable Allied advance. Existing strongholds on New Guinea, including Lae, Salamaua, Finschhafen, Hansa Bay, Madang, an
d Wewak, typically featured one or more airstrips, harbor facilities, army or navy garrison forces, and potent antiaircraft batteries. The Lae-Salamaua area alone boasted fifteen thousand troops, of which approximately a third were combat-ready. However, those troops represented the only military strength on hand. The vaunted naval air units had all been withdrawn, in part because the Eleventh Air Fleet now had to concentrate on the battle in the Solomons, and also because the airdromes at Lae and Salamaua had been pulverized by repeated bombing and strafing attacks.

  Whitehead initiated a multinational pounding of the Lae-Salamaua area in mid-June. As head of ADVON, he had the discretion to employ seven RAAF squadrons in a subcommand, No. 9 Operational Group, led by Air Cmdr. Joseph E. Hewitt. Formed as an independent striking force, the group was divided into two wings, with four squadrons at Milne Bay and three at Port Moresby. The bombing squadrons, equipped with A-20s (called Bostons by Commonwealth forces), sent formations of four to six light bombers against the Lae-Salamaua area almost daily over a period of weeks. The American A-20 squadrons conducted twenty-seven sorties during the same period, while B-25 strafers contributed about twice as many. Sweeping in over the treetops, they scattered daisy cutters, incendiaries, and parafrag bombs so frequently that the airdromes became untenable.

  At Rabaul, the Eleventh Air Fleet shifted its focus to local defense and the air war in the Solomons, conceding the aerial defense of New Guinea to the Imperial Army. Wewak, well north of the Huon Peninsula, became the new center of Japan’s New Guinea airpower. With four separate airfields and a large army garrison, the formidable complex was home to about 180 aircraft.

  In the Solomons, Halsey kicked off the first offensive of the New Georgia campaign, Operation Toenails, with a small-force landing at Segi on June 21. Next came the main amphibious landings on the north tip of Rendova Island on June 30, and at Munda, New Georgia, on July 1. Several hundred miles to the west, elements of MacArthur’s newly formed VII Amphibious Force began Operation Chronicle on June 30 with the occupation of Kiriwina Island. Engineers promptly commenced construction of a five-thousand-foot fighter strip (later extended by a thousand feet) that would be ready by the end of July. Woodlark Island was also occupied on June 30, whereupon engineers went to work carving a three-thousand-foot fighter strip that would be completed within two weeks.

  And finally, from Wau, high in the mountains of New Guinea, Australian and American forces began a push toward Salamaua, thirty miles to the northeast. Amphibious landings at Nassau Bay, twenty miles south of Salamaua, put heavy artillery ashore and established a supply point. But the campaign proceeded slowly. The terrain proved difficult, as did the Japanese. Bolstered by reinforcements brought down from Wewak, they put up stout resistance. The operation would drag on for weeks.

  Kenney, meanwhile, was eager to establish airfields closer to the enemy strongholds. Dobodura provided an important base on the eastern side of the Owen Stanley Mountains, but it was still 170 miles from the Lae-Salamaua complex. At that distance, Kenney’s fighters were limited to an estimated thirty minutes over the target area.

  In early June, a reconnaissance party located an abandoned grass strip in the mountains near the village of Marilinan, forty miles inland from the coast and equidistant from Lae and Salamaua. Local natives hacked down the kunai grass, enabling Brigadier General Wurtsmith, the head of V Fighter Command, to land a P-40 there on June 8. After inspecting the strip (which had to be lengthened so that he could take off), Wurtsmith discovered a more promising site just a few miles away near the village of Tsili-Tsili. The level plain was big enough to support two runways and multiple revetments, so an engineering battalion was sent in to begin building a field immediately. To prevent the Japanese from discovering it, Kenney arranged the construction of a diversionary strip at Garoka, near Bena Bena, in the mountains about eighty-five miles northwest of Tsili-Tsili. Native work crews deliberately stirred up plenty of dust, attracting Japanese reconnaissance crews and even some bombing raids.

  The deception worked. According to a postwar summary, the Japanese considered launching an infantry raid to capture the new base.

  We knew that the enemy was constructing a big air base in the vicinity of Bena Bena in New Guinea from the beginning of May [sic]. For fear that the above base would have a devastating effect on our bases in eastern New Guinea, the Eighth Army group consulted the central headquarters to draw up plans for the destruction of this enemy base. In June the 7th Air Division, which had been in the Dutch East Indies area, and one raider unit which was sent from Japan, were put under the command of the Eighth Army group. The army group drew up plans to have the Bena Bena base captured by the raider unit under the protection of the reinforced air force and simultaneously have the 18th Army secure the same district.

  Intent on eliminating the decoy base, the Japanese missed the fields under construction west of Lae. By July 10, the runway at Tsili-Tsili could receive C-47 transports. Thereafter, supported by hundreds of planeloads of personnel, materials, trucks, and even small bulldozers and graders, the 871st Airborne Engineers worked on the airdrome at a blistering pace.* “The new field was coming along fast,” Kenney would later write, “and the Japs still had not discovered it.”

  Wurtsmith was directed to advance the 35th Fighter Group to Tsili-Tsili as soon as the strip could handle fighters. This couldn’t happen fast enough for Kenney, who fretted about the Japanese buildup at Wewak. He wanted “to really liquidate the place,” but knew there were too many fighters at the four airdromes to risk a daylight attack without ample escort. To his delight, the engineers did their job in just over two weeks. Fifteen hundred drums of aviation gas were flown in, and the first fighters touched down on July 26 to stand daytime alerts. As far as the Japanese knew, Wewak remained out of reach of Allied aircraft except for unescorted heavy bombers. But as Kenney later put it, he had built a new airfield “right in their back yard.”

  In early August, the 40th Fighter Squadron of the 35th Fighter Group moved up to Tsili-Tsili. Facilities were sparse, inasmuch as the engineers had focused on completing the airstrip. When the squadron’s ground personnel arrived on August 11, they discovered a primitive setting. “Hardships became the byword of squadron personnel,” wrote the unit’s historian. “The general area was mountainous, with no accessible overland approach routes. Everything had to be flown in by transport. There was an inadequate warning system because the mountains reduced the effectiveness of radar. On many occasions, the sound of exploding bombs and the burst of ack-ack fire were the first indications that an air raid was in progress.”

  The garrison and squadron personnel would soon learn just how inadequate the warning system was.

  IF THERE WAS one segment of his air force that Kenney could finally feel good about, it was Fighter Command. In the spring of 1943, aircraft shortages were so severe that he scrounged around Australia to find three war-weary fighters at repair depots. Kenney was pleased with the performance of the P-38 outfits, but among the 8th, 35th, and 49th fighter groups, only one squadron in each was equipped with Lightnings; the other squadrons still flew outdated P-39 Airacobras or P-40 Warhawks. Kenney pleaded frantically to Arnold to send the aircraft he had been promised, as they were still not coming in the numbers pledged. During April, for example, the army shorted Kenney by forty-five fighters, twelve heavy bombers, sixty-one medium bombers, sixty-six light bombers, and forty twin-engine transports. He wired Arnold again on May 1 and complained about the shortfall, pointing out that an additional 276 aircraft were promised for the month of May. He added that unless he got the 224 aircraft owed for April, plus the promised inventory for May, he would be forced to revise his operational plans.

  Kenney’s persistence finally got results. Arnold arranged to send enough new P-38s during June to form a whole new fighter group, designated the 475th, but there was a catch: Kenney would have to organize it with personnel already overseas. He began by gathering unattached talent as best as he could from the 11th Central
Replacement Depot in Australia, but still had to pilfer pilots and ground crews from existing groups, regardless of the aircraft they flew. This caused resentment among the leaders of the affected squadrons, because Kenney demanded top performers. No one dared protest too loudly, however; Kenney was the boss. Moreover, many of the pilots who had been flying P-39s or P-40s jumped at the offer to transfer into the hotrod Lightning. With enough aircraft and personnel to field three squadrons, the 475th Fighter Group was activated on May 14. Lieutenant Colonel George W. Prentiss, the erstwhile skipper of the 39th Fighter Squadron/35th Fighter Group, assumed command a week later. Three months of training in Australia would ensue before the first all-P-38 group in the Southwest Pacific was deemed ready for combat.

  Other important developments were also afoot. Throughout the first half of 1943, Kenney and Whitehead had predominantly sent heavy bomb groups to attack distant targets, such as Rabaul, while the medium bomb groups concentrated on targets within their reach. In addition to attacking the aforementioned strongholds on New Guinea, the A-20s and B-25s of the 3rd and 38th Bomb Groups periodically hit Gasmata and Cape Gloucester on New Britain. The RAAF, particularly the Beaufighters of 30 Squadron, attacked coastal locations and enemy barge traffic.

  Few of these strikes were large in scale; instead, small numbers of aircraft conducted harassment raids. Mission requirements also included patrols and antishipping strikes, which diminished the effort that any single group could muster for an event. The missions were important, disrupting the enemy’s attempts to resupply or reinforce their strongholds, but the Allied crews were growing bored. As the 38th Bomb Group’s official history explained: “Missions of the past few months, with the exception of March when the 38th put on a spectacular show in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, were strikes at enemy installations, and there was something dull and uninteresting about it, except when the enemy would put up a few fighters to intercept our formations or else try to break up our attacks with an intense anti-aircraft barrage—and that was rare.”