by Bruce Gamble
Such sentiments were about to change. As of early 1943, only one outfit, the 90th Bomb Squadron of the 3rd Bomb Group, operated modified B-25 strafers—the ones Kenney called “commerce destroyers.” In May, the group’s 8th and 13th squadrons converted to the up-gunned version, as did the 71st and 405th squadrons of the 38th Bomb Group. Describing themselves as “specialists in daring low-level work,” the latter commenced strafing missions on May 12.
The following month, Kenney welcomed an influx of aircraft and personnel, including the 348th Fighter Group, equipped with Republic P-47D Thunderbolts, and the 345th Bomb Group, with four squadrons of B-25Ds. After a few warm-up missions, the 345th flew down to Townsville to have their aircraft converted to strafers.
The conversion—an outgrowth of Kenney’s innovative genius, the self-taught engineering talent of Maj. “Pappy” Gunn, and the encyclopedic knowledge of Jack Fox, a civilian technical representative from North American Aviation—was highly effective. With the bombardier’s position and equipment removed from the glazed nose section, there was ample room for four .50-caliber machine guns in a reinforced panel, fed by ammunition canisters providing four hundred rounds per gun. Two additional .50-caliber guns were installed on each side of the fuselage in streamlined blisters, yielding a total of eight fixed, forward-firing heavy machine guns wired to a trigger controlled by the pilot. Another practical enhancement was the removal of the ventral turret, which had proved worthless during the B-25’s first year of combat. In its place went an auxiliary three-hundred-gallon fuel tank that not only extended the B-25’s range, but helped counter the weight of the nose guns and ammunition. The early conversions, which included the aircraft of the 3rd and 38th Bomb Groups, provided an attachment for dropping the tank after emptying it. No one dared carry an empty tank into a combat situation: the fumes inside were explosive. Furthermore, the tank interfered with the movement of the upper turret, which remained inoperative until the tank was dropped.
KENNEY HAD GOOD reason to be concerned about Wewak. Lieutenant General Hitoshi Imamura, commander of the Eighth Area Army headquartered at Rabaul, and Lt. Gen. Hatazo Adachi, commander of the Eighteenth Army headquartered at Madang, were not only committed to holding Lae and Salamaua, but had considered an advance southward to Bena Bena, very near the deceptive emergency strip that Kenney was building at Garoka.
Imamura, like Kenney, had pleaded with his superiors for more aircraft. Few planes were on hand at Wewak during March and April, resulting in limited offensive operations—no support for ground units, no attacks on Allied airdromes or harbor facilities. Improvements were pending, but the development was slow. Five months had passed since the occupation of Wewak, yet the 5th and 10th Airfield Construction Units, assisted by more than three thousand soldiers, had completed only one airdrome. Lacking heavy equipment and basic tools, the Japanese depended primarily on manual labor. By late spring 1943, their engineering efforts had yielded approximately 160 revetments among the four airfields, most of them at the original airdrome, where construction was deemed completed except minor repair work. Thirty bomber revetments had been constructed at But airdrome, and at Dagua (known as But East to the Japanese), sixteen out of the planned forty fighter revetments were finished. Boram (Wewak East) boasted only eight bomber revetments, with another fifty to be completed by the end of June. In a striking comparison, U.S. Army engineers had used practical know-how and airlift ingenuity to build a complete airdrome at Tsili-Tsili within weeks.
The slow progress at Wewak was due partly to tropical diseases. Coastal New Guinea was notorious for its endemic rates of malaria, dengue fever, amoebic dysentery, and other debilitating and deadly infections. According to one Japanese author, 60 percent of the army personnel at Wewak were sick in mid-1943, most of them infected with malaria or amoebic dysentery. No one could do much about the insidious mosquitos, which the Japanese came to fear almost as much as “Boeings,” but the incidence of dysentery was largely their own fault. Crude living conditions, poor diet, and disregard for sanitation created the perfect breeding ground for bacterial infections.
Despite the lack of construction equipment and the battle with diseases, the airdromes were eventually operational. One of several units that commenced the long journey to the Southeast Area from Japan was the 68th Sentai (Flying Regiment, roughly equivalent to an Imperial Navy air group), the first to be equipped with the army’s sleek, liquid-cooled Type 3 fighter. Built by Kawasaki, the Ki-61 Hein (Swallow) was routinely mistaken for the Messerschmitt Bf-109, but more closely resembled an early model P-51B Mustang. The streamlined fighter possessed good flight characteristics and armament (two 12.7mm and two 7.7mm machine guns), and had a top speed of almost 370 miles per hour; however, the Ha-40 twelve-cylinder inline engine was unreliable in the tropical heat and humidity.
In early April 1943, the 68th’s planes and pilots departed from Yokosuka, Japan, aboard the auxiliary aircraft carrier Kasuga Maru, which delivered them as far as Truk. The regiment would have to proceed independently to Rabaul, a challenging overwater flight of approximately seven hundred miles. Twenty-seven fighters started out on April 27, but the transit ended in misfortune for a formation of thirteen. Due to “lack of necessary facilities, poor navigation, [and] poor equipment,” eight fighters crash-landed on or near a small atoll, two others turned back, and two disappeared. It was fortunate that one plane of the thirteen arrived safely at Rabaul, resulting in the eventual rescue of the eight stranded pilots on May 10.
While the 68th Flying Regiment made its troubled way southward, additional units proceeded to Wewak by various routes in April and May. Meanwhile, radar equipment arrived to provide advance warning of inbound Allied raids. However, the installation did not become operational for several months—a delay that would have important ramifications.
In June, partly in response to Imamura’s request for more planes, but also to interdict the Allied decoy airfield at Bena Bena, Imperial General Headquarters ordered the Fourth Air Army to relocate from the Netherlands East Indies to the Southeast Area. Commanded by Lt. Gen. Kumaichi Teramoto, the force of approximately ten thousand troops including aircrew, ground staff, and support personnel reached Rabaul on August 6. Soon thereafter, Teramoto was instructed to move his headquarters to Wewak. The force departed with ambitious orders from General Imamura: destroy Allied shipping around New Guinea, attack Allied ground forces in the Lae-Salamaua area, and destroy “the enemy air force advancing to Eastern New Guinea.” The latter was undoubtedly a reference to Kenney’s new airdromes at Marilinan and Tsili-Tsili, which had finally been discovered. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the fields were already operational.
BY THE SECOND week of August, Wewak’s four airdromes were crowded with aircraft, including light bombers, heavy bombers, reconnaissance aircraft, and four regiments of fighters.
A high-speed pass by the 8th Photo Squadron on August 11 produced pictures labeled “unidentified airdrome,” but two days later a pair of F-4/F-5 Lightnings obtained excellent photographs. Intelligence analysts at Port Moresby counted 199 aircraft among the four airdromes (though Kenney, in his autobiography, put the number at 225). Whatever the figure, General Teramoto’s Fourth Air Army was a serious threat to the Allies.
The development was exactly what Kenney had hoped for. Now that Tsili-Tsili airdrome was operational, P-38s could top off their tanks and reach Wewak in the fighter escort role. From his headquarters in Brisbane, Kenney instructed Whitehead to plan an attack against all four airdromes simultaneously using every strike aircraft capable of making the round trip.
The details were up to Whitehead and the staffs of the bomber and fighter commands, who came up with a two-part plan. It would commence with a predawn raid by the heavies of the 43rd and 90th Bomb Groups, followed by low-level attacks at daybreak by squadrons of B-25 strafers. Equipped with droppable auxiliary fuel tanks, the modified B-25s had the range to reach the distant target.
A Japanese reconnaissance plane lingered over Tsili-
Tsili on the morning of August 14, putting the Allies on alert. That evening, P-39 Airacobras of the 40th Fighter Squadron, 35th Fighter Group, arrived for defense. Much maligned during the first year of the Pacific war, primarily due to its lack of an efficient turbo-supercharger, the Airacobra had undergone improvements. The 35th had recently received P-39Ns, which had a larger propeller and reduced armor, giving the fighter a better rate of climb. Whitehead described the enhancements as “very popular” among the pilots, but in truth, few would have passed up an opportunity to switch to P-38s.
The advance of P-39s to Tsili-Tsili occurred none too soon. While V Bomber Command held off the strike on Wewak, presumably to wait for favorable weather, Lt. Gen. Teramoto launched a preemptive raid. Thirty-four Ki-43 Oscars from two regiments took off from Wewak on August 15, and rendezvoused with seven Type 99 light bombers (Kawasaki Ki-48s, Allied codename “Lily”) of the 208th Flying Regiment. Under an eight-tenths cloud layer at eleven thousand feet, the Japanese got close to Tsili-Tsili without detection. Radar missed them, as did a squadron of P-38s from Port Moresby patrolling above the clouds.
Down below, a church service was in progress. The army engineers had not only built two runways in record time, but they’d put up several essential structures, including a chapel. And although it was a Sunday, the pace of C-47 deliveries continued unabated. A dozen transports had just landed and were unloading. Twelve others, some carrying headquarters staff and ground echelon personnel of the 35th Fighter Group, circled the landing pattern.
Shortly after 0900, the incoming raid was detected. By that time, the Japanese bombers were only a mile away.
Also orbiting the airdrome were twelve P-39s of the 41st Fighter Squadron/35th Fighter Group, providing cover for the transports. Spotting the attackers, which they both miscounted and misidentified as “nine medium bombers (Sallys) … at 10,000 feet,” the Airacobra pilots engaged the Ki-48s over the airdrome.* Committed to their bomb runs, the Lilys took no evasive action.
In the landing pattern, fear gripped the men aboard the twelve C-47s. Low and slow, with wheels and flaps lowered in preparation for landing, the transports were defenseless. The passengers, mostly noncombatant personnel, could only watch as the attack unfolded around them. Just as the first bombs began exploding on the field, the lead transport touched down unharmed. The other eleven scattered in all directions over the treetops.
High above, the Oscars lagged behind the seven bombers. Too late, they charged in to break up the intercepting Airacobras. Captain Shigeki Namba, leading one of the cover elements, later lamented that “one by one the Ki-48s were shot down in flames.”
Two of the doomed bomber crews attempted a taiatari, or suicide dive. Literally translated as “body crashing,” taiatari was the honorable choice for a crew whose plane was crippled over the target. Bailing out and becoming a prisoner, akin to surrendering, was anathema to those who subscribed to the Bushido philosophy of an honorable death in combat. Fliers who deliberately chose to crash into an enemy ship, plane, or structure were therefore hailed as heroes in Japan. On this day, at least one taiatari succeeded: a falling bomber smashed directly into the chapel, killing the chaplain and six or seven men inside.
Radio communications with the P-38s patrolling overhead failed, so the Lightnings never joined the ensuing fight between the Oscars and approximately thirty P-39s, some of which scrambled aloft from Tsili-Tsili. When the dust settled, the 35th Fighter Group claimed fourteen “confirmed” victories. Some were duplicates, as only seven Ki-48s participated. According to captured diaries and postwar statements, none of the Lilys returned to base. Two bombers either fell or crash-landed during the long trip home, as five crash sites were found within close proximity of Tsili-Tsili.
The 35th lost four P-39s, all from the 41st Fighter Squadron. Two pilots bailed out and were quickly recovered, one crash-landed on the airstrip without injury, and the fourth was found dead in the wreckage of his Airacobra. Oscars also shot down one of the C-47s, which carried six passengers and crew. All either perished when it crashed on the airdrome, or died later of wounds. A second C-47, perhaps badly damaged, disappeared somewhere in the mountains with nine souls aboard. At the airdrome, a total of twelve personnel had been killed on the ground, bringing the Allied death toll to almost thirty.
The Japanese had inflicted casualties but failed to destroy the airdrome. No serious damage was done except to the chapel, yet the returning Japanese, perhaps to honor the Ki-48 crews, reported that the airdrome had been badly damaged. In addition, the two Oscar regiments claimed a total of eighteen American fighters—more than four times the actual losses—along with “three or four” transports. The effort had cost the Japanese, by their own admission, a total of seven bombers and three fighters.
Teramoto launched a follow-up raid the next afternoon, August 16. The airlift routine at Tsili-Tsili hadn’t skipped a beat, with forty-eight C-47s unloaded that morning and another forty-seven in the early afternoon. About half of the second group had just taken off for the return flight to Port Moresby when the radar crew picked up a large plot to the northwest, toward Garoka. Once again, American fighters were overhead. Thirteen P-38s of the newly arrived 431st Fighter Squadron/475th Fighter Group and two squadrons of P-47 Thunderbolts from the even newer 348th Fighter Group provided cover for the troop carriers. All three squadrons tangled with the enemy planes, estimated by the Allies as sixteen bombers escorted by fifteen fighters. The Japanese reported sending thirty-three fighters and only three bombers.
The P-38s fared well, perhaps because the pilots of the 431st claimed an excessive number of kills. A situation report from Whitehead on the afternoon of the fight noted a tally of eight Japanese fighters and two bombers destroyed, with no losses among the P-38s. Part of his assessment was true—the squadron got away clean with only two Lightnings damaged—but somehow two additional fighter kills were awarded back at Port Moresby, giving the 431st a total of twelve victories. The Japanese admitted the loss of three fighters.
Meanwhile, the Pacific debut of the P-47 Thunderbolt resulted in the reported downing of three enemy fighters—the exact number of fighters the Japanese admitted to losing that day. On the debit side, 2nd Lt. Leonard G. Leighton of the 341st Fighter Squadron made the rookie mistake of fixating on an Oscar and firing continuously, which left the door open. Another Oscar jumped Leighton from behind and sent him crashing into the jungle. Several days later a patrol finally reached the remote site on foot. They decided to bury Leighton next to his plane.
Leighton was the only American shot down that afternoon, which brought the losses on the American side to seven aircraft over two days. Back at Wewak, the 24th and 59th Flying Regiments defied credibility by claiming a two-day total of thirty-nine Allied planes. They also reported Tsili-Tsili airdrome as destroyed. Buying into the exaggerations, senior staff officers arrived from Rabaul to present awards and conduct a ceremonial inspection.
The Japanese had confirmed Kenney’s disdain for their habitual poor planning. Teramoto had put up piecemeal attacks against Tsili-Tsili instead of wielding the powerful forces available to him. Among the nearly two hundred planes on hand were two regiments of Type 99 light bombers and a regiment of Type 97 heavy bombers—a combined force of more than ninety planes. Yet he had sent only seven light bombers on the first attack and fifteen on the second, leaving more than thirty heavy bombers on the ground. Those aircraft, parked in revetments, were a menace to nobody.
Even more critical was Teramoto’s mistaken belief that his forces had destroyed the forward Allied airfield. Lulled by a false sense of security, he thought his stronghold was safe from attack. But Teramoto was in for a nasty surprise—and a lesson in air power.
OVER A SPAN of three hours beginning at 2100 on August 16, thick roils of dust billowed from the runways at Jackson Field and Ward’s Strip as twelve B-17s and thirty-seven B-24s roared aloft. Each of the eight squadrons of the 43rd and 90th Bomb Groups had provided at least six aircraft for the
mission, an effort unlike any seen before at Port Moresby. Gathering loosely by squadron, the bombers headed for Wewak, 480 miles to the north-northwest. Their route was indirect, however, taking the bombers north to the Huon Gulf, where they turned left and followed the coastline to the target. This avoided the highest peaks of the Owen Stanley Mountains, but added another seventy miles to the distance.
Assigned by squadrons to hit all four airdromes at Wewak, the heavies carried various types of ordnance. The lead B-24 from each of the Liberator-equipped squadrons flew with hundreds of four-pound incendiaries. The devices would hopefully start numerous fires around the target, lighting the way for the bombardiers in the trailing ships. The rest of the B-24s, along with all of the B-17s, carried loads of twenty-pound fragmentation bombs.
Much had changed since a year earlier. Back then, a mission was considered successful if three or four planes reached the target. This night, only one aircraft—a 90th Bomb Group B-24—turned back due to mechanical difficulties. The weather cooperated, and the first bombers reached the target soon after midnight. For the next three hours, the airdromes were peppered with thousands of small-order explosions. Six B-17s from the 63rd Bomb Squadron and a few from the 65th dropped fragmentation clusters on Dagua airdrome, as did the B-24s of the 64th Bomb Squadron, while the Liberators of the 403rd and a few B-17s attacked But. Although the crews were “reasonably” confident of accurate delivery, the explosions were difficult to see, unlike the blasts made by conventional five-hundred- or thousand-pound general purpose bombs. Nonetheless, the attack ignited one large fire and two smaller blazes. Antiaircraft fire, described as moderate and inaccurate, caused only a few shrapnel holes in two Fortresses.