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

by Bruce Gamble

  At 1510, Wallace successfully touched down at Kiriwina, having flown for two hours and a quarter on one engine. Hicko was rushed to the base hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair his thumb and perforated intestines. The other crewmen were bloodied by nicks and cuts, and at least three were sickened temporarily by the gasoline leak.

  Tondelayo was in equally poor shape. The crew found forty-one holes, some large and jagged, yet the bomber had lived up to its rugged reputation. It would remain at Kiriwina for months, needing a new engine, a whole wing, radio equipment, and “many other repairs” before flying again. But it had brought its crew home alive.

  AT DOBODURA AND Port Moresby, reaction to the mission was mixed. True and his pilots believed they had pulled off a surprising triumph under the circumstances. The six squadrons from the 38th and 345th Bomb Groups claimed forty-one enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground, thirty-eight fighters shot down, and three ships sunk.*

  But many participants thought True would have to answer for continuing the mission after the fighter cover turned back. They were correct. “We thought, first of all, that he would get hell for it,” recalled Tatelman. “But later on he was made a hero because of the fact that the mission was a success. During the flight we had no idea that he had gotten the radio call to turn back. I was the wingman for Captain Baird on the flight, and I did not hear the call to turn back.”

  Mahaffey agreed on both counts: “True got a severe reprimand for that,” he remembered. “And then he got a decoration.”

  True’s immediate superiors threatened to bring him up on charges for disobeying orders. He endured a severe tongue-lashing at Dobodura, but the final decision was left to Kenney. Reporting to Kenney’s headquarters in Brisbane a few days later, True received another bawling out. He had not disobeyed a direct order, but rather a standing instruction that bombers were to return to base if the fighter escort turned back. True had walked a fine line, but he probably anticipated that Kenney, who overtly fostered aggressive leadership, would not punish him.

  Kenney later confirmed this:

  After congratulating him on the success of his mission, I said, “Now that it’s all over, tell me, True, didn’t you hear the P-38s say that they were going home?” The rascal looked me in the eye, grinned, and said, “General, I didn’t hear a word.”

  He was lying and he knew that I knew it but he was sticking to his story. I said, “Okay, we’ll forget it, but don’t do it again.” He said he wouldn’t, saluted, and left. I had a suspicion he didn’t have a single regret, in fact, was rather proud of himself. As a matter of fact, I was kind of proud of him, too.

  Any remaining heat on True evaporated exactly a week after the raid. Virtually identical circumstances arose during a mission to Rabaul on October 25, when the P-38 squadron leaders announced on the command frequency that they were turning back because of a solid front. This time, two heavy bomber group commanders continued on to Rabaul, claiming later that they had not heard the message.

  At the next awards ceremony for the 345th Bomb Group, True received a Distinguished Service Cross. Other decorations awarded for the mission of October 18 included sixteen Silver Stars and seven Distinguished Flying Crosses.

  Whether or not True heard the radio calls, he was in good company.

  *Actual reported Japanese losses: 5 aircraft destroyed or badly damaged at Tobera, 3 burned or severely damaged at Rapopo, and 3 Zero fighters failed to return.

  CHAPTER 13

  Bloody Tuesday

  JAPANESE BOMBING AND strafing attacks against Allied bases in New Guinea were dwindling. Throughout much of 1942 and the first half of 1943, Port Moresby had suffered through more than one hundred raids. Many of the early attacks went undefended. By late 1943 only a few hecklers attacked; nevertheless, it took only one intruder to tickle the radar network and set off the sirens, disrupting sleep for thousands. Staff Sergeant Kenneth G. Gasteb, a member of the headquarters staff of the 345th Bomb Group, witnessed raids well into September 1943. “Several Jap planes came over, by the light of the moon, at 0400,” he noted on the 20th. “They dropped their bombs around Port Moresby. The ack-ack put on a good show as usual. The searchlights couldn’t find the planes because of the clouds, [so] the ack-ack used radar sighting for firing at them.”

  Gasteb’s observation was interesting not only for referring to the evolving technology of radar, but because it was the last known raid on Port Moresby.* Dobodura was rarely heckled, either. The complex had become too big a base by then, well-protected by a radar warning network, antiaircraft gun emplacements, and squadrons of P-38s, P-40s, and P-47s. With steady improvements to the living conditions and infrastructure, Dobodura was tolerable, considered by some to be superior to other locations in New Guinea. Lieutenant James P. Gallagher, a communications officer in the 33rd Fighter Control Squadron, was delighted by the change of climate when his unit moved from pestilential Milne Bay to Oro Bay in late 1943. “Instead of setting up in thick and ugly jungles,” he wrote, “we made camp on a coastal plain with lots of kunai grass. The level ground readily absorbed rains instead of turning into a quagmire—a welcome blessing.”

  But it was still New Guinea. Every soldier, sailor, and airman who served there would always remember New Guinea as a place of primitive conditions and environmental hardships. Thankfully, for the airmen and a few fortunate ground troops, there were opportunities for to visit Australia. Numerous cities welcomed the Yanks with open arms, including Townsville on the coast of Queensland, and Mackay, two hundred miles farther south, described by one visitor as “a beautiful little town.” But the mecca for flyboys on liberty was always Sydney. The promise of decadent fun was so tempting that McMurria and his crew risked everything to get there—and paid the price.

  The fact that many of Australia’s young men were elsewhere, fighting for Mother England, has probably been overemphasized, but in Sydney, thousands of young women were undeniably eager, willing, and able to entertain Yanks on leave. The Americans were paid regularly while in the combat area yet had little opportunity to spend their earnings until they got to Australia. And there, they spent freely. Sydney became a city of excesses, a phenomenon not unlike modern-day communities where college students frolic on spring break.

  By late 1943, some flight crews could get to Sydney on a predictable schedule. The 345th Bomb Group, for example, let full crews fly to Sydney when their B-25s required a hundred-hour inspection: about every six weeks. The officers of the 499th Bomb Squadron grew tired of trying to find good hotel rooms in overcrowded, overpriced Sydney, so they came up with a creative solution.

  Vic Tatelman described the arrangement years later:

  The obvious solution was for the 499th officers to pool funds to buy a house. Not just any house, but a fine four-bedroom home right on Rose Bay, in an affluent neighborhood looking out onto Sydney Harbor. We even had a permanent taxi driver, George, whom we supplied with gasoline (100 octane aviation fuel to be exact, drained from airplanes). George knew where the best Aussie beer was sold, how to get drunken pilots back and forth to the Roosevelt Club, and where to find the most luscious girls.

  After the horror and filth of New Guinea, what a change of mood and attitude that place brought. If New Guinea was hell, Sydney was heaven! Clean clothes, all the hot water showers one wanted, and comfortable beds. Three lovely girls made sure the house was clean and stocked with food, liquor, and beer.

  Some of Sydney’s civilians capitalized on the excesses, but many Australians were genuinely friendly and accommodating. Thousands of romances blossomed, though they rarely withstood long separations—or statistical probability. Many an American flyboy in love returned to the combat area and was never heard from again; sometimes because of callousness, but all too often because the young man was dead or missing.

  Ray Wilkins, commander of the 8th Squadron, 3rd Bomb Group, had been in the Southwest Pacific for over a year, but got few trips to Australia. One of his rare leaves occurred in early March 194
3, causing him to miss the epic Battle of the Bismarck Sea.

  While others were making history, Wilkins met Phyllis Byrne, a lovely twenty-six-year-old from a prominent family in Rockhampton, Queensland. They went dancing at every opportunity, fell in love, and when Ray returned to New Guinea he painted her nickname, Fifi, on his plane. Later, when Ray took command of the 8th Squadron in September, the name adorned his new B-25. After leading his squadron on the October 12 mission to Rabaul, Wilkins went back to Australia to visit Phyllis. Returning at the end of the month, he announced that he and Phyllis had set a wedding date.

  The hard part, everybody knew, would be keeping it.

  V BOMBER COMMAND had struck Rabaul a few more times during Wilkins’ absence. The day after True’s unescorted raid, an 8th Photo Squadron F-5 brought back high-altitude pictures that showed more than two hundred aircraft on the four airdromes. Misled by claims from previous attacks, which far exceeded actual enemy losses, Whitehead and the ADVON staff believed the Japanese were having no difficulty obtaining replacement aircraft. The result was a vigorous renewal of the bombing offensive.

  Lakunai airdrome had been largely ignored thus far. Whitehead planned to send the heavy bombers of the 90th Group against the main fighter base while the 43rd Group bombed Vunakanau. A fighter sweep by three P-38 squadrons would precede the heavies. Three additional fighter squadrons would provide top cover for the B-24s.

  The mission started out well enough. Fifty-seven B-24s met a hundred P-38s over Kiriwina. But after the formation crossed the Solomon Sea, they found both Lakunai and Vunakanau socked in beneath cumulonimbus layers up to twenty thousand feet. No secondary target was assigned, so the element leaders decided to bomb Rapopo. They announced it on the command channel, but the transition was rocky. In the confusion, several elements made either unsatisfactory bomb runs or none at all; those that complied dropped numerous demolition bombs and frags on the runway and dispersal areas. Although observation of the bomb hits was interfered with by Japanese fighters, twenty parked aircraft were claimed as destroyed on the ground. The actual damage was significant, with eleven aircraft destroyed or badly damaged and seven others less damaged.

  Meanwhile, interception by forty-two Zeros from three different air groups led to intense clashes. Lieutenant Marion F. Kirby, one of the pilots who had transferred into the 475th Fighter Group upon its formation in New Guinea, was part of the fighter sweep conducted by three squadrons from that group. Flying with an element from the 431st Squadron, Kirby saw about thirty Zeros suddenly swarm from a tall cumulonimbus cloud like angry bees. The opposing fighters met in “one hell of a dogfight,” and Kirby splashed his fourth victory overall—a Hamp. The fighter sweep was deemed successful, with members of the 475th claiming twelve additional victories. All the reports submitted by the participants of the 432nd Squadron, led by Maj. Charles H. MacDonald, were for claims against JAAF Oscars. The other two squadrons predominantly described combat with navy Zekes and Hamps.

  Some of the P-38 escort pilots also scored that day, including Gerald Johnson. Hell-bent on revenging his three lost squadron mates, he exploded a Zeke from point-blank range and then collided with pieces of it, his P-38 collecting several dents. Gunners aboard various Liberators were credited with four kills, bringing the day’s aggregate to eighteen credited victories. Reported Japanese losses were three Zeros, with at least three others damaged. One pilot who returned to Lakunai had been wounded.

  Japanese units claimed nineteen P-38s definitely destroyed and five others “uncertain,” although only one Lightning was actually shot down. Lieutenant Edward J. Czarnecki of the 431st Squadron, his fighter damaged by antiaircraft fire, got approximately a hundred miles from Rabaul before exiting his bird. He came down south of Wide Bay in the same general vicinity as Migliacci and Henderson and, like them, evaded capture by the enemy.

  On October 24, better weather conditions existed for a low-level attack on Rapopo and Tobera by three squadrons of the 3rd Bomb Group, while all four squadrons of the 345th attacked Vunakanau. Sixty-two strafers took off from Dobodura and joined up over Kiriwina Island with fifty-four P-38s. Among the latter was Red Flight, a four-plane tactical division of the 9th Fighter Squadron led by Dick Bong. He had been in a slump, with only one victory in the past three months, yet he was still the leading ace in the Fifth Air Force with seventeen planes to his credit. (Bong was not the leading American ace. A Marine Corps major named Gregory Boyington had set a blistering record of fourteen victories between September 16 and October 18. Boyington had also allegedly achieved six victories as a member of the American Volunteer Group. Only two of the six were aerial victories, but the Marine Corps never attempted to verify Boyington’s claims. Thus, by late October 1943, he had officially outscored Bong with a total of twenty victories.)

  As the strafers and P-38s approached the enemy airdromes from the southeast, dozens of interceptors from Tobera, Vunakanau, and Lakunai awaited them. Two were bombers, new to the Eleventh Air Fleet. A week earlier, an advance echelon of Air Group 501 had arrived with fourteen Type 2 carrier bombers (Yokosuka D4Y1s), known to the Japanese as Suisei (Comet), and to the Allies by the recognition name “Judy.” The two that went aloft on this morning carried aerial-burst bombs designed to explode among the enemy formations.

  The B-25 squadrons reported no aerial bursts, probably because of the numerous fights that broke out. During the run-in for the attack on Rapopo, Lt. Col. James A. Downs led the 8th Bomb Squadron around some low clouds over Kabanga Plantation.* Just then his formation was attacked aggressively, head-on. One Zero, fired upon and possibly disabled by Downs, flew directly into the bomber on Downs’ wing, piloted by 1st Lt. Robert E. Miller. The fighter and strafer collided at a closing speed over five hundred miles per hour, presenting no possibility of survival.

  The 13th Squadron reached Tobera airdrome only to find little worth attacking. The crews counted only four parked fighters, two of which had already been disabled by previous raids. The other gunship squadrons had better success in their attacks, bombing and strafing Rapopo, where twenty-one aircraft were reportedly destroyed on the ground, and Vunakanau (twenty-seven planes destroyed).

  Defending fighters also engaged the escorting P-38s. On the right flank of the 13th Bomb Squadron, Bong and his rookie wingman, 2nd Lt. Woodson Woodward, had just reached Tobera when they spotted three Zeros approaching from the north. The enemy fighters had a thousand-foot advantage. “We dropped our belly tanks and climbed to the attack,” wrote Bong. “I shot one burst at a Zeke at 2,000 feet, no results; shot one burst at a Zeke 10 o’clock high, no results; shot one burst at a Zeke 11 o’clock high, no results.” It was an off-day for Bong, who lost sight of Woodward while shooting at three different Zekes and missing all three. Bong joined up with the leader of the second section, Lt. Norman D. Hyland, who had gone after two different Zekes and claimed one as destroyed, but neither man saw Woodward again. Later, during the egress over Saint George’s Channel, Bong strafed three small boats before withdrawing.

  Another P-38 squadron, the 80th, described similarly heavy action: “The ensuing combat was generally conceded to be the hottest battle yet encountered by any of our pilots. The Jap pilots appeared exceptionally eager and experienced, and one B-25 was seen to crash as a result of their attacks. Major Cragg was wounded slightly when enemy fire struck his canopy and shattered the glass, pieces of which struck him in the arm. Lieutenant J. Corallo, Jr. was also wounded when a bullet grazed his arm.”

  All across the central Gazelle Peninsula and over Blanche Bay and Saint George’s Channel, big twin-boomed Lightnings and lightweight Zeros twisted and turned, some soaring two miles high among the billowing clouds, others down on the deck in deadly chases, streaking blindly through smoke and dust that rose above the bullet-torn airdromes. The outcome decidedly favored the P-38s. None were shot down outright, although a dozen suffered damage (including Major Cragg’s). Two later cracked up while landing at Kiriwina, and Woodward, last seen over the S
olomon Sea at low altitude, never showed up.

  The Japanese air groups, by comparison, suffered one of their worst defeats to date. One Zero of Air Group 253 at Tobera didn’t return. Two others were badly damaged, evidently in crash-landings, with both pilots injured. Four additional Zeros suffered lesser damage. Among the fighter units based at Lakunai, four Zeros were destroyed in the air and three more did not return to base. Four of the dead or missing pilots were from Air Group 204, including Warrant Officer Shizuo Ishi-i, a two-year veteran. The eighth of nine children from a farming family, he had accumulated twenty-nine victories before his luck ran out over Rabaul.

  The American toll included the crew of Miller’s B-25 and the disappearance of Woodward. One B-25 ditched in Collingwood Bay, just eighty miles southwest of Dobodura, but its crew was promptly rescued. Thus, at the cost of two B-25s and one P-38, the low-level attack had caused serious damage to the enemy. Japanese reports revealed that nearly every Betty bomber parked at Vunakanau was hit: two were destroyed outright, five others “almost destroyed,” and an additional twenty-seven affected by some degree of “other damage.”

  The mission’s overall success did not prevent a strafer squadron from criticizing the raid. A Fifth Air Force summary later explained: “One complaint asserted that the Japanese had been expecting the attack, and that the time of the attack and route to the target should have been different from previous strikes. It was also argued that coconut groves surrounding Rapopo and Tobera concealed the airdrome so well from low-flying planes that that type of attack was impracticable. In any case, the 13th Squadron was convinced that the Tobera mission had been merely a waste of effort in view of the few planes based there.”