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

by Bruce Gamble

  That didn’t stop MacArthur from publishing another of his classic communiqués from Brisbane. “Photographs reveal the total destruction of 120 enemy planes and severe damage to at least another 50,” his statement claimed. “Heavy casualties were inflicted on his air and ground crews, who were completely surprised and unable to escape the machine gun and bombing attacks as our planes strafed and re-strafed the fields in numberless passes. It is estimated that 1500 enemy air personnel were killed.”

  Although the figures were concocted, the destruction was severe. Approximately fifty Japanese planes were destroyed and an equal number damaged. The psychological damage was severe, too. Colonel Kazuo Tanikawa, a staff officer in the Eighth Area Army, later acknowledged that “the scale and suddenness of the 17 August raid took the Japanese defenses completely by surprise.”

  Virtually overnight, Wewak’s sense of security evaporated.

  AT DURAND AIRDROME, several miles north of Port Moresby, Gay, Lackness, and Middlebrook met privately with their squadron commander. They were all too happy to powwow with Maj. Ralph Cheli, a young, aggressive leader who regretted missing the “fun” of the morning raid. Cheli passed along a congratulatory message from Whitehead; he then declared that he would lead the next mission against Wewak, along with the first B-25 attack on Rabaul in the foreseeable future. Already a veteran of thirty-eight missions, Cheli’s pilots respected him highly. They tried to dissuade him from flying the forthcoming mission, arguing that his leadership on the ground was more important, especially because two neophyte squadrons were joining the group.

  Cheli countered with a timeworn rationale. He could not send his men on hazardous missions if he wouldn’t fly them himself.

  *In a feat of backyard engineering, 2 1/2-ton trucks were cut in half with torches so that the two halves could be loaded aboard C-47 transports. At the destination, the halves were welded and bolted back together, ready for use.

  *“Sally” was the Allied recognition name for the army Type 97 heavy bomber (Mitsubishi Ki-21).

  *Gay, Middlebrook, and Lackness each received the Distinguished Service Cross for their deep and daring attack on Dagua, with Silver Stars awarded to the rest of the crewmembers.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Hornet’s Nest

  GENERAL WHITEHEAD PROBABLY regretted the boast immediately. Giddy after hearing the results of the first round of attacks against Wewak, he said, “Neither Boram nor Wewak is any longer a target.” He surely knew that it was premature to declare the airdromes finished, but his remark appeared in bold type on the front page of the Sydney Telegraph. Before the paper even hit the streets, Whitehead ordered a follow-up raid.

  The second one-two punch against Wewak began early on August 18. Again, the first wave involved heavy bombers, about equal in number to the previous effort. But this time they attacked during daylight, and the weather was worse due to a front lying across the route. Forty-nine heavies were assigned, but less than half reached the target. Those that did either bombed through the clouds or simply dumped their payloads over the water. Nine B-24s of the 64th Squadron/43rd Bomb Group could not locate Wewak or their alternate target, and accomplished nothing. The six participating B-17s of the 63rd Bomb Squadron fared only slightly better, with four reaching the target. One pair dropped their bombs in a dispersal area, and the other, making a run on But airdrome, watched their bombs overshoot the runway and land in the water.

  The B-25 gunships enjoyed better success reaching the target area. Of the sixty-two that took off from Durand and Schwimmer airdromes beginning at 0630, only nine aborted. Rendezvous with the P-38 escorts proved successful, after which the various formations proceeded toward their assigned targets. However, the deteriorating weather made it difficult for the fighters, positioned above the B-25s, to maintain visual contact. Closer to the ground, the bomber crews endured a nerve-wracking experience as their aircraft bounced through the dark, turbulent clouds.

  After punching through the front, the B-25s descended even lower over the Japanese-controlled foothills. The squadrons of the 3rd Bomb Group were assigned to hit Boram and Wewak, and those of the 38th to attack Dagua and But. This time, however, despite the significant damage suffered the previous morning, the Japanese had scrambled at least thirty fighters. The aircraft of the 8th Squadron/3rd Bomb Group completed an effective strafing and parafrag attack on Boram, but as they wheeled around to start for home, the last B-25 in line was sucked out of the formation. Easy prey for enemy fighters, 1st Lt. Richard C. Henrich’s strafer fell a few miles south of Wewak. The fate of the crew remains uncertain. If any survived the shoot-down, they did not live long as captives.

  One unit had a change of orders. Instead of attacking an airdrome, Maj. John P. “Jock” Henebry led six planes of the 90th Bomb Squadron against shipping in Wewak Harbor. Visibility was limited. Although seventeen five-hundred-pound bombs were dropped during attacks on several vessels, only two direct hits were scored on a merchantman. Approximately 8,500 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition were also expended, but the only discernible damage was to a small coastwise vessel.

  For most of the other squadrons, the August 18 attacks were similar to those of the previous day, but with heavier antiaircraft fire and enemy fighters to contend with. Leading both squadrons of the 38th Bomb Group, Ralph Cheli had an extra passenger: the popular Aussie liaison officer, John Massie, was aboard to assist with visual cues leading into Dagua.

  The first part of the mission went smoothly, but trouble developed when the formation neared the enemy stronghold. Overhead, a feint by a half dozen enemy fighters lured the P-38s into a brawl. In the third four-plane element behind Cheli, leading Flight C, Garrett Middlebrook was angry that the escorts were so easily distracted. “Piss …,” he said to himself. “The P-38s will chase those six Zeros [sic] all over the sky and when they return to base every last mother’s son will claim that he shot down each Zero twice.”*

  He also scorned the escorts for not fighting down low, where the strafers flew. He had a point. The P-38s were out of position when ten Oscars of the 59th Flying Regiment initiated an attack on the B-25s. Diving through a broken layer of clouds about five hundred feet above the bombers, the Ki-43s targeted Cheli’s lead element. The savage attack astonished Middlebrook, who had a gut-wrenching view of it.

  Middlebrook felt both frustration and fear. Cheli was not only flying too slowly, but he was about 250 feet too high: Middlebrook wanted to be right above the treetops. The first Ki-43 swooped in from the left, got below Cheli’s flight, and opened fire on the B-25 flown by 1st Lt. William F. Pittman, who was stepped down on Cheli’s left. The bomber’s left engine, left wing, and fuselage were hammered by 7.7mm and 12.7mm rounds. Middlebrook, from his trailing position, could actually see tracer rounds exiting the opposite side of the fuselage. The gunfire wounded two of Pittman’s crewmen and damaged a propeller blade on the right engine, but the rugged B-25 stayed in formation.

  Dipping to the right, the Oscar slid under Pittman to the far side of the lead bomber. Pulling up behind Cheli at his five o’clock low, the Japanese fighter opened fire at close range. Some of its heavy 12.7mm (equivalent to .50-caliber) rounds were explosive shells that detonated on impact with the right engine and wing of Cheli’s aircraft. The engine burst into flames as Cheli led the formation over a ridge—the same ridge that Middlebrook had crossed the previous day. During the briefing he had urged the other pilots to avoid it, convinced that the Japanese would be waiting for them. He was right. When Cheli crested it, a terrifying eruption of antiaircraft fire seemed to swallow all three B-25s in the lead flight.

  Somehow the formation stayed intact. When the smoke cleared, Cheli was still in the lead, but the engine fire had intensified. The copilot in Pittman’s B-25, 2nd Lt. Edward J. Maurer Jr., later recalled seeing flames in the fuselage of Cheli’s aircraft and Massie with the back of his clothing on fire. Yet the B-25 flew on, unwavering, with Cheli still in complete control. His lead element was now due south of Dagu
a airdrome, roughly abeam the runway, so Cheli continued leading the formation slightly beyond the target. Then, wheeling to the right, he lined up for an attack down the runway from west to east. Cheli’s decision to stay with the formation while his plane burned up—witnessed by virtually every crew in the attack—was regarded as the ultimate act of heroism. He could have turned the lead over to Pittman, but chose not to. Perhaps the inflight fire occupied every ounce of his skill and attention; perhaps he came to the cold realization that he and his crew faced death or capture no matter what he did; or perhaps he simply decided that continuing on the attack run was safer than pulling out of the formation.

  Indeed, the Japanese were swarming over the other four-plane elements. Three miles southeast of Dagua, Gay’s flight was intercepted so aggressively that he turned into the attack to evade it. The whole flight slid out of formation, so Gay led them over the water while the gunners fought off the enemy fighters. Making the best of the situation, the B-25s strafed a cluster of barges off Muschu Island, then unloaded their parafrags as they crossed over the island before heading home.

  Flight C was hit even harder. Middlebrook would later exclaim: “God, how fanatical they were!” Enemy fighters made nineteen passes, some of which concentrated on the number four position, flown by 1st Lt. John M. Donegan. With his rudder controls and right aileron shot out, he could not stay in formation, which exposed his B-25 to even heavier attacks. Some of the Japanese came within one hundred yards. At least one flew a cannon-equipped fighter, wounding Donegan in the right shoulder and arm with shrapnel from a 20mm shell. The copilot and navigator were knocked unconscious, and the turret gunner suffered lacerations when his Plexiglas turret cover was shot away. The other gunner was the only crewman not seriously wounded. He provided first aid and helped Donegan handle the damaged airplane.

  Over Dagua, meanwhile, Ralph Cheli stayed in formation and accomplished his mission before giving in to the inevitable. With his engine streaming flames, he led the strafers down the strip. The outcome was described matter-of-factly in the 38th Bomb Group’s narrative history: “Thirty Dinahs or Helens were destroyed by the bombing and strafing, and the parafrag explosions caused further explosions and fires in the revetment area and around planes on the runway. Large columns of black smoke rose to 2000 feet while fires continued to spread through the dispersed planes.”

  The attack run completed, Cheli finally turned the lead over to Pittman. Still under full control, Cheli’s stricken B-25 continued in a wings-level, shallow descent over the beach at the end of the strip. Heading easterly, he made a smooth splashdown beyond the surf line. Overhead, the remaining three planes of his flight, followed by Middlebrook’s flight, sped low over the waves toward the sanctuary of low clouds, where they finally shook off the hostile defenders.

  A few miles up the coast, the 71st Bomb Squadron accomplished its mission: in addition to heavy strafing, a dozen B-25s unloaded nearly five hundred clusters of parafrags and daisy cutters on aircraft, vehicles, and gun emplacements. And high overhead, a “furball” between P-38s of the upstart 475th Fighter Group and an estimated thirty Japanese fighters swirled fiercely. Hours later, when intelligence officers sorted out the details, the pilots were officially credited with the destruction of fifteen enemy planes for the loss of one Lightning and its pilot. The most impressive effort was a “hat trick” earned by a young lieutenant in the 431st Fighter Squadron, Thomas B. McGuire Jr. His three kills over Wewak were the first of many, and he would soon find himself in company with Dick Bong and other top-scoring aces.

  By midday, the returning aircraft were back at their bases. In addition to the single P-38 shot down, only Cheli’s and Henrich’s B-25s didn’t return. Donegan was presumed to have crashed, but just as his squadron mates began to grieve his loss, he bellied in at Jackson Field with most of his controls and essential systems shot out. Donegan and three of his crewmen were trundled off to the hospital by ambulance, and the B-25 eventually returned to service after extensive repairs.

  The return of Donegan and his crew was a tremendous relief to the 38th Bomb Group, but the talk in the camps was about Cheli. Word of his heroism also sped to Australia. On the afternoon of August 18, Whitehead wired a three-page situation report to Kenney in Brisbane. Most of the document focused on the two days of attacks, but the final paragraph was dedicated to the heroics at Dagua: “Cheli, who was leading the 38th Group, and his crew were lost today,” wrote Whitehead. “His airplane was attacked and was in flames before he reached the target. Despite this, he carried out his attack on the Dagua airdrome, leading his unit in a most successful attack before he crashed into the ocean just offshore. I am getting the data together with a view of recommending Cheli for the Medal of Honor. From preliminary data available, his case appears to merit that award.”

  Replying the following day, Kenney offered a suggestion: “In writing up Cheli’s case, be sure to get affidavits covering the fact that he continued the attack and led his unit into action in spite of the fact that his airplane was on fire. Also mention something to the effect that after the airplane got on fire he could have climbed to sufficient altitude to bail out if he had been willing to allow his organization to go leaderless into the attack.”

  The last sentence was merely an opinion—and a poorly founded one. Cheli could have turned the lead over. The contingency should have been discussed in detail during the mission briefing. In theory, therefore, the formation would not have gone “leaderless.” More importantly, Kenny had no concept of how savagely the Japanese fighters had attacked. He also failed to comprehend how quickly they would have swarmed over Cheli’s aircraft had he climbed to a safe altitude to jump. In addition, Cheli could not pull straight up to bail out. With two squadrons of B-25s following him, he would have needed to pull off to one side to avoid parachuting into their flight path. This would have further exposed his plane to the full fury of the Japanese fighters. In hindsight, Cheli’s decision to stay with the formation gave him and his crew the best chance of survival.

  The truly remarkable aspect of the incident was Cheli’s airmanship and cool-headedness under unimaginably intense circumstances. While under fire from enemy fighters and antiaircraft guns, he dealt with a severe inflight emergency and led his squadron on a tricky attack at minimal altitude.

  Cheli’s squadron mates had no idea whether he had survived the crash-landing at sea. Because of the aggressive fighters and heavy antiaircraft fire, they could not linger over the spot where he ditched. A few years later, when Kenney penned his autobiography, he concocted a heroic demise for Cheli and his crew.

  Having completed the most successful attack of the day, which wiped out every Jap plane on the field, Cheli then instructed his wingman to lead the formation back home and said he would try to make a landing at sea. He turned north toward the water which was only a few miles away and made it, but before he could land, one of the gasoline tanks exploded and the airplane plunged into the sea. For this action beyond all call of duty he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously.

  Kenney forgot (or didn’t know) that Dagua airdrome lay only a few yards from the sea, not “a few miles.” His alternate ending is curious because he surely knew, by the time he wrote his memoirs, that Cheli had survived the watery crash-landing.

  A fishing boat recovered Cheli and two of his crew and took them ashore. Numerous Japanese observed this, including an officer in the 51st Airfield Battalion who would later state that Cheli, although shirtless, could walk without assistance. A medical officer in the same organization examined Cheli and deemed him unhurt. The two crewmembers, however, were stretcher cases. Staff Sergeant Clinton H. Murphree, the turret gunner, had bullet wounds in his abdomen and thigh. Technical Sergeant Raymond C. Warren, the radioman/gunner, had two broken ribs and an eye injury.

  The captives were moved to the 59th Flying Regiment headquarters and later to the 9th Flying Brigade headquarters, during which time Murphree apparently died of his wounds. If
the latter, the Japanese medical personnel at Wewak would have exerted little effort other than to make him comfortable. Warren, as an enlisted man, was almost certainly executed after his rank was determined. No record exists to corroborate a date or location, but other crewmen from B-25s of the same group, captured earlier that month, were known to have been murdered in that area.

  Two weeks before the big strikes on Wewak, twenty-four strafers of the 38th Bomb Group had conducted a barge sweep along the New Guinea coast from Lae to Madang. Numerous small vessels were strafed and destroyed, but a B-25D of the 71st Bomb Squadron, flown by Capt. William H. Uhler, was attacked by a pair of fighters that either caused control damage or wounded the flight crew. Flying erratically, the aircraft climbed and temporarily joined another element of B-25s, but it collided with one of the planes and “plunged into the sea at a sharp angle,” as described by Middlebrook. Witnesses thought that no one surfaced after the crash; however, copilot 2nd Lt. Owen H. Salvage survived and was taken prisoner. While in the water, he sustained a nasty bite, ostensibly from a shark, on one calf.

  Three days later, accurate antiaircraft fire caused a B-25 of the 405th Bomb Squadron to ditch near Madang. The squadron’s commanding officer, Maj. Williston M. Cox Jr., had been leading the overall mission and was captured along with most of the crew. Taken to Madang, Cox would later remember seeing Lt. Salvage there, his leg badly infected. The captives were subsequently moved to a Kempeitai compound in the village of Amron, about nine miles above Madang in the foothills. There, the survivors from the two B-25s (except Cox) were executed on August 31. Second Lieutenant Robert J. Koscelnak (copilot), 1st Lt. Louis L. Ritacco (navigator), and Tech. Sgt. Hugh W. Anderson (radio gunner) were blindfolded, bayoneted, and then beheaded by soldiers of the Kempeitai. Lieutenant Salvage was stabbed by “many soldiers” who took turns—essentially using him for bayonet practice. Lastly, Capt. Robert L. Herry (pilot) asked to be shot rather than stabbed to death, but he was tied between two uprights and bayoneted.