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

by Bruce Gamble

  The streets of Rabaul were blanketed with smoke. The “cocktails” had started dozens of fires and caused numerous casualties. Hundreds of flimsy wooden buildings and unprotected storage dumps ignited easily. Clouds of white phosphorus invaded air raid shelters, poisoning the occupants. Smoke from the fires blended with the chemical clouds, creating a great, choking pall that drifted between the mountains and the waterfront.

  The Kempeitai compound on Casuarina Avenue had miraculously escaped the carnage. But the attack had still terrified the POWs, whose wooden cells were becoming overcrowded. The three-week offensive against Rabaul, together with the intense air war over Bougainville during the first half of October, had resulted in the arrival of at least a dozen new aviators. McMurria, Holguin, and other early arrivals had endured several air raids by this time, but the attacks were becoming more intense—and more difficult to endure.

  The raid of November 2, recalled Holguin, was no exception:

  The first wave of B-25s approached at low level from the northeast so as to minimize their exposure to the hundreds of antiaircraft batteries that surrounded the harbor. In so doing, they came hedge-hopping right over our camp, with guns ablaze and engines at full throttle, the empty bullet casings dropping on the tin roof of our cells as they flew by. Our apprehension and fear was total as once again we believed the end to our wretched existence had come. But again, “lady luck” came to our rescue by having placed our camp at the very foot of the surrounding rim of hills and volcanoes, which made it impossible for the low-flying bombers to get their guns down soon enough to hit us.

  While the 498th and 500th Squadrons bombed and strafed Rabaul, the other two squadrons of the 345th Group hit Sulphur Creek and the eastern end of Lakunai airdrome. By this time, however, more antiaircraft emplacements were in action. Some were firing down on the B-25s from elevated positions on the volcanoes and around the rim of the caldera, and many guns concentrated their fire on the gap between the volcanoes. Namanula Hill may have provided a temporary defilade for the B-25s as they approached the target, but it was also a natural chokepoint.

  Nine B-25s of the 501st Squadron were the next to shoot the gap. They banked hard to the left and headed south while descending to a hundred feet. During the turn, antiaircraft fire hit the right engine of Hellzapoppin, piloted by Lt. Orbry H. Moore. The engine caught fire, but Moore deployed the carbon dioxide extinguishing system and stayed with the squadron through the attack run. The 501st strafed antiaircraft emplacements, shore facilities, a floatplane base, the eastern threshold of Lakunai airdrome, and more while scattering 480 parafrags. Ground fire “from countless unobserved positions alone the entire line of flight over the target” was reported as both accurate and intense. Virtually every warship in the harbor, along with many of the merchantmen, also seemed to be shooting at the B-25s, several of which were hit hard.

  As the gunships came off the target and skimmed over Simpson Harbor, Moore’s damaged right engine reignited, as did part of the wing. He drifted and nearly collided with another B-25, then reported to the squadron leader that he was in serious trouble. The other planes slowed, turned the lead over to Moore, then pulled in around him as Zeros swarmed over the formation, attacking aggressively.

  The fire aboard Moore’s aircraft intensified. Bursting oxygen bottles fed the flames like a blowtorch, and the B-25 slid out of the formation to the left, drawing with it several hungry Zeros. Most of the P-38s assigned as close cover were tangling with Zeros, but Marion Kirby had stayed with the 501st Bomb Squadron. With three victories already to his credit, Kirby had been assigned to lead the twelve P-38s of the 431st Fighter Squadron/475th Group on the mission. However, he had accidentally disabled his airspeed indicator by tapping too hard on the glass face, and therefore turned the lead over to his wingman. Once the fight began, Kirby streaked over Lakunai airdrome with the B-25s. Asked years later about his altitude on that pass, he laughed, “There wasn’t any altitude. We were right on the deck.”

  While following the bombers across the harbor, he noticed a Mitchell in distress:

  I was slightly inland and encountering much antiaircraft fire from the ground constantly. I saw a B-25 about this time with its right motor on fire, presumably from ack-ack fire. Three Zeke type aircraft were attacking him to finish him off. I attacked alone. I definitely got one, this confirmed by Lt. [Francis J.] Lent. I attacked another, hitting him many times and I think I got him. In the meantime, one Zeke type plane latched onto my tail. Lt. [Fredric F.] Champlin got him off for me. I saw him shoot the plane and it started smoking heavily, rolled over, and hit the ground going straight down. I was then very low on gas, so I started for Kiriwina.*

  Moore’s burning B-25 continued for only a short distance after Kirby got rid of the two attackers. The bomber landed in Saint George’s Channel, about three miles east of Lesson Point, but Moore and his copilot evidently went down with the plane. The three enlisted crewmembers—sergeants John M. Barron, William C. Harris, and Michael H. Kicera—escaped and were taken prisoner. Shortly thereafter, they joined the other POWs in the Kempeitai compound.

  The remainder of the 501st endured a running gunfight with fifty enemy fighters. The aggressive Zero pilots attacked as close as forty feet before breaking off—and they kept attacking long after the squadron cut across the tip of Cape Gazelle and descended to the wave tops over Saint George’s Channel, heading south. Finally, the Japanese gave up the chase south of the Warangoi River.

  One more squadron of the 345th Group cleared the pass between the volcanoes and then broke left, lining up on targets in the northeast corner of Simpson Harbor. The ten crews of the 499th Squadron, led by Capt. Glenn W. Taylor, had been briefed that eighty-three automatic weapons were placed around Sulphur Creek. The B-25s were loaded with white phosphorous bombs, and photos taken automatically proved that a number of gun positions were undoubtedly hit by the incendiary devices. Similarly, a highly detailed imaged showed that at least one white phosphorous bomb exploded on the eastern threshold of Lakunai, engulfing a Betty along with a Zeke, the latter with its outer wing tips folded. Like the other squadrons, the 499th faced periods of intense antiaircraft fire as well as interception by Zeros, but no bombers were lost and only one pilot was wounded.

  AT 0917 TOKYO time, seven hours after withdrawing in defeat from the early morning action in Empress Augusta Bay, Omori returned to Simpson Harbor. Among his eight remaining warships, five were in need of repairs. The crews were frustrated as well as exhausted, and faced more bad news that morning when submarine I-104 reported that only thirty-eight officers and men from the light cruiser Sendai had been picked up. Ijuin was among those rescued, but in the culture of Bushido, his survival would not necessarily be regarded by his superiors as a bonus. (Demoted to a patrol boat command, Ijuin was killed in action the following year. Omori, having failed to reach the American transports at Bougainville, was relieved of his command.)

  Aboard Shigure, one of the only destroyers not damaged during the battle, Hara marveled that she had again come through a fierce engagement without a scratch. However, her engines direly needed an overhaul, and after running at maximum speed for over an hour during the fight, they began to act up above eighteen knots. As the commander of Destroyer Division 2, Hara had used his instincts well. On this particular morning, he had “a hunch” that another raid was imminent. He therefore ordered the destroyer’s captain, Lt. Cmdr. Kamesaburou Yamagami, to make the necessary preparations. “Rabaul is no longer a safe place,” Hara warned. “The enemy will probably send a heavy attack today and we must be ready for them. Prepare Shigure for an all-out aerial attack.”

  Hara was also responsible for the destroyers Samidare and Shiratsuyu, both of which had been damaged that morning. The former had received two direct hits that killed five crewmen and wounded five, while Shiratsuyu had been badly crunched in a collision with Samidare. Their exhausted crews were ill prepared for an air strike, yet Hara’s hunch was correct: the first wave of B-25s arr
ived at 1140 Tokyo time, just two and a half hours after his scarred, dented destroyers had dropped anchor.

  Hara later provided a detailed and unique perspective of the attack:

  All my crews worked feverishly, and it was well they did. The enemy came, and in strength, approaching from the north that a height of no more than 50 meters over the water. Previous attacks on Rabaul had all been made from high altitude, but the tactics were changed this day. The ensuing battle was the most spectacular action of my life.*

  Shigure was the first ship to get underway, closely followed by Samidare and Shiratsuyu. All guns were pointed skyward when the first wave of planes came in, and the gun crews worked like fury. They fired everything without pause, seeming to vent the general anger pent up after our unhappy return from Empress Augusta Bay. A total of eighty B-25 bombers and eighty P-38 fighters hit Rabaul that day, and most of them skimmed past the masts of my destroyers. Three little ships speeding out of the harbor must have been something that the American pilots and bombardiers had failed to reckon with.

  The American bombardiers were not ready or perhaps disdained to use their bombs on our small ships. Few bombs were directed at our ships, Shiratsuyu being the only one damaged, and then but slightly by a near miss. On the other hand, our guns were telling. The enemy formations were shredded as they passed us.

  Hara claimed that Shigure downed five American planes that morning. Sixty-seven years later, Kirby confirmed only part of the captain’s account. “I remember seeing three destroyers at the entrance to Simpson harbor,” he said. “Naturally they fired at us, but they didn’t hit anything.”

  AS HAZARDOUS AS the 345th Bomb Group’s job of suppressing antiaircraft guns had been, the task handed to “Jock” Henebry and the 3rd and 38th Groups was infinitely more dangerous. The presence of two heavy cruisers had not been anticipated. Hagura and Myoko were sleek floating fortresses. Their main eight-inch batteries would be of little use against low-flying attackers, but each of the warships mounted eight five-inch dual-purpose guns and more than fifty 25mm rapid-fire weapons. The light cruiser Agano was even sleeker, and her upper decks fairly bristled with antiaircraft weapons, including four 3.1-inch mounts and some sixty 25mm cannons.

  In addition to flying into the teeth of three cruisers, Henebry and his forty-odd Mitchells faced several destroyers and a dozen or so smaller warships. Moreover, the attack could not be made all at once. The B-25s first had to stream through the gap between the volcanoes like so many bees from a hive, after which they would fan out to attack individual targets. Hundreds of Japanese naval weapons would be brought to bear, and there were still plenty of land-based guns to create a ring of fire around the great caldera.

  And even then, after the B-25s ran this gauntlet of tracers and exploding projectiles, the Zeros would be waiting.

  THE TWO SQUADRONS of the 38th Bomb Group, having established the proper separation behind the 345th, throttled up to attack speed as they approached the pass between the volcanoes. Behind them, the three squadrons of the 3rd Group gradually responded as the spacing between formations increased, each element leader reacting to the acceleration of the planes in front of him. The separation between squadrons increased as the lead units pulled ahead.

  At the head of the 71st Squadron, Lt. Frank M. Cecil strafed a few targets as his nine B-25s approached the gap between the volcanoes. The Japanese answered with a storm of antiaircraft fire from emplacements all around and even above the pass. Rather the climb straight into the heavy ground fire to fly through the gap, Cecil wheeled his squadron to the right. Moments later, he swung the formation back to the left, leading his squadron around the volcano. After rolling wings level on a southerly heading, the B-25s separated into two-ship elements and descended to a hundred feet or less as they dropped over the rim of the caldera.

  Heavy smoke and drifting phosphorus clouds rose to four hundred feet, obscuring the harbor until the bombers swooped over the shore. Pilots had but a matter of seconds to pick out and line up on individual targets. Strafing all the way, each tried to hit the choicest ships with thousand-pounders. Murderous fire from all directions forced the pilots to jink and weave to spoil the enemy’s aim. Naturally this maneuvering complicated the pilots’ efforts to simultaneously strafe as well as bomb their selected targets. And they had no time to think: the B-25s covered the length of a football field every second, a mile every fifteen seconds. Judgment and timing had to be perfect, as the bomb bay held only two thousand-pounders. No one could afford to drop them indiscriminately.

  Despite all the jinking, hellacious antiaircraft fire, and the heart-pounding effects of fear and adrenalin, Cecil’s first wave of bombers scored several hits or near misses. The mission report described the first attack as follows: “Two 1000 pound [demolition bombs] were dropped at a 7000 to 10,000 ton merchant vessel anchored about 800 yards off the old wharf. This vessel was hit causing it to explode and was left in a sinking condition.”

  Cecil himself apparently bombed the ship. Manko Maru began sinking by the stern, its stack and aft deckhouse in shambles, even before the trailing elements of the 71st Squadron crossed the harbor. Up close, from minimal altitude, the ship must have seemed monstrous—much larger than it actually was: Manko Maru, a stores ship built in 1923, displaced all of 1,500 tons.

  Another two-plane element, led by 1st Lt. James A. Hungerpiller, made a run on a “destroyer” and scored a direct hit. This was almost certainly W-26, a 237-foot-long minesweeper with a destroyer-like outline. The warship was later reported to be “in a sinking condition,” which was true: her crew had to beach the badly damaged vessel north of Sulphur Creek. (In the meantime other B-25s may have contributed to the warship’s overall damage.)

  Hungerpillar did not make it out of Simpson Harbor. Flak hit the left engine and his B-25 burst into flames. As reported by his squadron mates, Hungerpillar attempted “a final effort to drop his last bomb and make it count” by attacking a heavy cruiser. The bomb fell short, however, and the flaming B-25 passed directly over the warship before plunging into the harbor.

  Other planes in the squadron fared better, though none scored anything closer than one near miss on a “Fox Tare Charlie,” the recognition code for a standard Type C merchantman with the superstructure amidships. A few planes hugged the eastern shoreline, strafing the floatplane base at Sulphur Creek. One crew did not bomb shipping at all. Perhaps because of mechanical trouble, the bombs were not released until the aircraft was over Raluana Point, seven miles outside Rabaul.

  It took less than sixty seconds to traverse Simpson Harbor, but for the men inside the bombers, it seemed an eternity. As the squadron’s history noted: “During this time, the entire area was a mass of devastation and murder. One B-25 was seen to go down in flames; many enemy fighters were seen to leave a trail of flame behind them, then splashed with a sickening thud into the water; a parachute with a charred but limp body of a flier was seen to float past one plane as he was making his run.”

  Such vivid images were not unique to the 71st Squadron. The eight B-25s of the 405th were next in line, but had fallen farther back after the squadron became separated in a heavy rainsquall. The situation further unraveled when several Zekes intercepted the first flight of four, led by Capt. Anthony T. Deptula, from the northwest. Turning into the attack, Deptula’s flight overflew Blanche Bay, far from the approach path, and three of the crews dropped their bombs harmlessly in the sea.

  The second flight continued around Crater Peninsula, following the same line as the 71st Squadron around The North Daughter volcano, and attacked from north to south across Simpson Harbor. With only four planes in the run, each B-25 received plenty of attention from enemy gunners. One bomber, piloted by Lt. Roger K. Fox, was shot down in flames and crashed in the harbor. The other three, jinking wildly, claimed near misses on two large merchantmen and a direct hit that sank a coastwise vessel of three hundred tons. A cargo ship of about 2,500 tons was reported burning amidships after a strafing attack, a
s were a flying boat and a single-engine floatplane. By the time the B-25s cleared the harbor, all three had received moderate damage with one crewman wounded.

  HENEBRY’S 3RD GROUP made the final run at enemy shipping in Simpson Harbor. Flying his beloved Notre Dame de Victoire, he led the 90th Squadron through the gap between the two volcanoes. Henebry followed the downslope to the shoreline and sped straight across the heart of the anchorage without collecting any noticeable damage. Leveling off at perhaps fifty feet, he found himself lined up almost perfectly on three ships. It so happened that he had talked his ground crew into stuffing an extra five-hundred-pound bomb in the airplane; so with a third bomb available, Henebry attempted to attack all three.

  First in line was a merchantman of about four thousand tons, later identified as Hokuyo Maru. Holding his finger on the trigger, Henebry followed the path of his tracer rounds as they struck the ship broadside, then pulled up at the last second, barely clearing the aft derrick, and released a thousand-pounder. It slammed into the stern, sending debris hundreds of feet into the air. Henebry shoved the nose over and was still lined up on the second ship, a former cargo-passenger liner of more than ten thousand tons named Hakusan Maru. Anchored near the western rim of the caldera, the ship served as a troop transport. It rode broadside to Henebry’s flight path, making it relatively easy for him to plant his second thousand-pounder dead amidships on the port side. He had strafed it during the run, setting fire to the main superstructure, and the detonation of his bomb sent up a column of thick black smoke.

  Henebry wanted to attack the cruiser next. It was still in line, but already trying to escape from Simpson Harbor. Unfortunately for Henebry, the gap separating Hakusan Maru and the cruiser was too narrow, affording no time to push the nose over and initiate a bomb run. Moreover, his attempt to bomb three ships consecutively had put Notre Dame de Victoire in a pickle: