Fortress Rabaul

by Bruce Gamble

  But Lieutenant Sakai was merely prolonging the inevitable. The CXAM radar could “see” his enormous flying boat through the clouds, making it only a matter of time before the Wildcats were upon him.

  Based on Thach’s recollection, Sakai may have spotted the fighters first.

  He flew into the clouds and we followed, hoping he’d come out on the same course on the other side. But he was a smart Jap. He turned inside the cloud, and when we came out, the air was vacant. We went back into the cloud, flying on instruments. There was a small opening in the cloud, and as I came into it, I looked down and not more than a thousand feet below was a huge wing with a red disc. It was my first sight of an enemy aircraft as close as that, and it nearly scared me to death.

  Thus began a deadly game of Wildcat-and-mouse, except that the mouse was enormous and well armed. Knowing he could not outmaneuver the fighters, Sakai attempted to evade them by descending through the base of the cloud. But the Kawanishi was simply too massive to escape unnoticed. Bursting out of the clouds at 1,500 feet, Sakai had only one option available: he had to run.

  Unlike the previous adversaries faced by the Yokohama airmen (the underpowered Wirraways of 24 Squadron), the Wildcats with their 1,200-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines had plenty of speed. They also had the immeasurable advantage of altitude. Perched above and behind the big flying boat, Thach and Sellstrom waited until it was well out in the open before commencing their first gunnery run.

  After years of practice, Thach’s first firing run was flawless. The heavy slugs from his four .50-caliber machine guns punched easily through the Kawanishi’s broad parasol wing, causing plumes of vaporized gasoline to spew from numerous holes in the fuel tanks. Ignited by a glowing tracer or an incendiary round, the volatile mist suddenly erupted in brilliant sheets of flame. Sakai and his men were doomed.

  Thach watched as several objects tumbled from the plane, thinking at first that they were bodies. They turned out to be eight small bombs. “I could see the Japs in the forward part of the plane stand up, but they seemed to make no attempt to jump,” Thach recalled. “The plane was almost completely engulfed in flames, and it hit the water with a huge explosion.”

  Sakai’s crew perished at twelve minutes past eleven. Miles away, observing a column of black smoke on the horizon, Lexington’s sailors let out a cheer. Fighting Squadron 3 had scored its first victory.

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, the CXAM radar detected another bogey, this time north of the task force. Lieutenant Gill vectored Burt Stanley and his wingman, Ens. Leon M. Haynes, toward the snooper and ordered them to “buster,” to which they shoved their throttles to maximum power. A short time later Haynes spied the target, another silvery Kawanishi at six thousand feet. He signaled to Stanley, who in turn radioed the ship with a tally-ho.

  In his excitement, Stanley missed the master gun switch while running through the precombat checklist, and nothing happened when he squeezed the trigger. After toggling the switch, he fired three bursts into the massive wing of the Japanese plane. Haynes followed, also registering solid hits.

  The flying boat, piloted by WO Kiyoshi Hayashi, began to burn. Slowly at first, then more steeply, it pitched over and fell toward the ocean, leaving a trail of greasy black smoke to mark the path of its mortal plunge. The spectacular explosion when it hit the surface at 1202 was again witnessed by Lexington’s crew.

  Expending just a few hundred rounds of ammunition, Fighting Squadron 3 had achieved two indisputable victories. On the opposite side of the ledger, twenty Japanese airmen were dead.

  IN THE CHINATOWN building that served as his headquarters, Rear Admiral Goto deliberated over the sighting report received from Sakai’s patrol plane. There had been no collaborating report since the initial message, nor was any amplifying word transmitted by the other two flying boats; but Goto had already made up his mind. Sakai’s information placed the American task force approximately five hours’ flying time from Rabaul, well within range of the 4th Air Group’s land attack aircraft. Goto was determined to destroy the approaching force but delayed the order to attack in the hopes of learning more from the patrol planes. The radio remained silent. At 1310, with nothing else to go on, Goto gave the order for the 4th Air Group to attack the American ships.

  For the men at Vunakanau airdrome, the situation was less than ideal. For one thing, the land-attack component was only two-thirds complete. The crews from the Chitose Air Group had completed their training and were en route from the Marianas with new aircraft, but they would not reach Rabaul until the following day. Thus, only eighteen aircraft were available for the mission.

  Secondly, although the airmen had significant combat experience, none had ever attacked a large naval force. They would also have to fly the mission without their preferred weapon, aerial torpedoes. None had been delivered yet to Rabaul, which meant that the Type 1s would be configured as bombers with two 250-kilogram (550-pound) bombs each. Additionally, the crews were aware that they would not enjoy fighter support. Only six Zeros had been delivered to Rabaul thus far, and there were no external drop tanks for them. Without the tanks, the Rei-sens lacked the range to reach the American task force, engage in combat, and still make it back to Rabaul. The land-attackers would have to fend for themselves.

  Despite the apparent shortcomings, the crews of the 4th Air Group had the utmost confidence in their fast, well-armed bombers. Thus far the air forces of the Imperial Navy had practically annihilated every opponent, giving the men at Vunakanau every reason to believe that the string of easy victories would be extended. Indeed, prior to boarding their aircraft, they gathered for an inspiring message from Rear Admiral Goto. “I want you to crush the enemy fleet, which is apparently a large one,” he told them. “Do not fear the enemy, however powerful he may be. Do not underrate him, however small his force. Fulfill your task with coolness and composure.”

  The airmen then climbed aboard their twin-engine bombers, which still wore the kumogata (cloud pattern) camouflage scheme left over from earlier campaigns. In contrast to the green-and-brown paint, heavily weathered after three months in the tropics, the fresh white identification codes of the newly formed 4th Air Group stood out brightly on the tails of the bombers.

  Lieutenant Commander Takuzo Ito, the hikotaicho, boarded “F-348” and sat at the rear of the bomber’s spacious greenhouse cockpit. A graduate of the Etajima Naval Academy and the Kasumigaura Naval Air Training School, Ito had a wife and family at home in the quaint city of Hiroshima. All of his previous experience had been in reconnaissance floatplanes, but ten days earlier he had been assigned to the 4th Air Group as the senior air leader.

  Next to Ito sat another observer, Lt. Yogoro Seto of Tokyo, the chutaicho (division leader) of the 1st Chutai. Up forward, CPO Chuzo Watanabe manned the senior pilot’s seat on the right-hand side of the cockpit, while FPO 2nd Class Minoru Toyoda occupied the copilot’s seat on the left—the reverse of the American system. Four additional crewmen climbed aboard, including a navigator who doubled as the bombardier/nose gunner, two radio operators, and the flight engineer. During combat, the radio operators, flight engineer, and one of the observers would man the bomber’s defensive weapons: a 7.7mm machine gun in the dorsal blister, two identical guns mounted in side blisters, and a 20mm automatic cannon in the tail.

  During startup, one aircraft from the 1st Chutai encountered mechanical problems and was scrubbed from the mission. The remaining seventeen planes taxied from their hardstands to the runway threshold, where the crews were thrilled to see hundreds of mechanics and other ground personnel lining the runway. As the first plane commenced its takeoff run at 1420, the well-wishers waved their caps over their heads and yelled “Banzai! Banzai!”*

  The aviators were supremely motivated. “Off we went,” recalled one, “led by a unit commander and heartily seen off by superiors and comrades. With the words, ‘We won’t fail you,’ we headed toward mid-ocean.”

  But Lieutenant Commander Ito and his medium bombers encoun
tered trouble soon after they crossed New Ireland and got over the open sea. Heavy rain squalls extended over a large percentage of the ocean, making conditions both difficult and hazardous for the large formation. Only two weeks earlier the group had lost two planes and their crews in a devastating mid-air collision, which likely influenced Ito’s decision to separate the 1st and 2nd Chutais. The nine aircraft of the latter, commanded by Lt. Masayoshi Nakagawa, took a slightly different heading and soon disappeared from view.

  UNKNOWN TO THE Japanese, Vice Admiral Brown had called off the planned strike. Rabaul was safe. The task force would soon reverse course.

  Brown had no alternative but to presume that one or more of the enemy flying boats had alerted Rabaul about the task force. The Japanese would be on high alert, with plenty of time to move their ships from Simpson Harbor and bolster their defenses. Without the element of surprise, Lexington’s airmen would face an unacceptable level of risk.

  Soon after the second flying boat was shot down, Brown made the difficult decision to cancel the raid. The ever-aggressive Ted Sherman wanted to press ahead, but Brown overruled him, recommending that another attempt be made later, perhaps when a second carrier was available. As a concession, he continued to sail directly toward Rabaul in a deliberate feint. With each passing hour, Task Force 11 moved almost twenty miles closer to the enemy stronghold.

  AT 1330, JIMMY THACH led his six Wildcats back to the Lexington, having turned the CAP over to the squadron’s 2nd Division, led by Lt. Cmdr. Donald A. Lovelace. A few hours passed without incident, but the anticipation of an enemy attack gradually increased as the afternoon wore on. Therefore, with a fortuitous sense of timing, Captain Sherman ordered the launch of the next available division at 1600. Before Lt. Noel A. M. Gayler’s 3rd Division had an opportunity to take off, the CXAM picked up a large contact seventy-five miles west of the carrier. Shortly thereafter the radar image vanished, only to reappear again at 1625, now fifty miles from the ship. Five minutes later a new plot showed the contact closing rapidly. An enemy attack was inbound.

  Klaxon alarms sounded throughout the task force, sending sailors to their battle stations. Aboard Lexington, Sherman rang for flank speed—one of the carrier’s best defenses. “Lady Lex” had begun life twenty years earlier as a fast battle cruiser, but her construction was nearly scrapped in 1922 due to the Limitation of Naval Armament treaty. Congress eventually came to the rescue. Authorized for completion as an aircraft carrier to circumvent the treaty limitations, Lexington was redesigned. Her upper works were completely transformed, but the propulsion equipment remained unchanged: sixteen oil-fired burners, four turbine generators, and eight massive electric motors generated more than two hundred thousand horsepower. Despite her great length and displacement, Lexington could reach a top speed of thirty-four knots—almost forty miles per hour—making her a difficult target to hit.

  The carrier’s shipboard weapons were no less formidable. Long-range armament consisted of a dozen 5-inch dual-purpose guns mounted on sponsons along both sides of the hull. Intermediate and close defense were handled, in turn, by 1.1-inch automatic cannon and water-cooled .50-caliber machine guns. All of the gunners were efficient, having trained almost daily against parachute flares and towed targets. Even when off duty, the crews of the 5-inch guns practiced with a mechanized loader mounted below decks.

  But even more than her speed or bristling gun batteries, Lexington relied on her squadron of Grumman fighters for defense. Immediately after Noel Gayler’s division took off, Lovelace and the 2nd Division returned to the carrier in preparation for landing. Low on fuel, they circled over Lexington and were thus out of position to intercept the attackers. In the meantime, Gayler’s six fighters climbed toward the inbound bogey in sections of two. Heavy with fuel, they lacked the time for a division rendezvous as Gill continually fed them updated vectors.

  Simultaneously, Lexington’s deck crewmen dealt with a unique problem. As soon as Gayler’s division was airborne they had to “re-spot” the flight deck in order to recover Lovelace’s fighters. This meant clearing the landing area at the aft end of the flight deck, where dozens of aircraft had been parked to make room for Gayler’s Wildcats to launch. The parked planes now had to be pushed forward manually so that Lovelace’s division could land.

  To anyone unfamiliar with carrier operations, the whole process of deck-spotting seems complicated, but the crew was accustomed to performing these flight-deck ballets several times a day. Normally they had ample time between launch and recovery cycles, but with six Wildcats low on fuel and an attack imminent, all of the parked planes had to be moved forward in haste. However, four additional Grumman fighters and more than twenty Douglas SBD dive-bombers had just been fueled in anticipation of the next launch cycle. Filled with highly flammable aviation gas, they now represented an enormous risk. If just one enemy bomb landed among them, Lexington was doomed. The planes had to be launched immediately to get them out of harm’s way, requiring another frenzied re-spot.

  As a result, Lovelace’s Wildcats were waved off and given new instructions to buster toward the incoming attackers. Some, very low on fuel, had already started coming in to land; but in response to the new orders, they raised their landing gear and headed westward at top speed.

  The deck handlers, meanwhile, continued their feverish dance of pushing planes aft while keeping the four gassed-up Wildcats available at the front of the pack. Jimmy Thach and three of his pilots from the 1st Division manned them and were ready to launch again as soon as the carrier turned into the wind.

  NAKAGAWA’S 2ND Chutai had found Lexington first. After all the bad weather during the flight from Rabaul, it seemed a bit ironic that the big carrier was steaming in an area of bright sunshine. The Japanese had no trouble recognizing the flattop: she was surrounded by her screen of escorts in what the Japanese called a “ring formation.” Nakagawa instructed one of his radiomen (there were three qualified operators aboard his aircraft) to notify 24th Air Flotilla headquarters, and the report was sent at approximately 1630 hours.

  Down below, American lookouts spotted the enemy formation ten miles from the outermost ship. The sky was so clear that Sherman later called it “a perfect day for bombing, with the oncoming planes easily visible from the bridge.”

  The nearest fighters were flown by Noel Gayler and his wingman, Ens. Dale W. Peterson. Due to their sluggish rate of climb, the two pilots had attained only a slight altitude advantage when they spotted the enemy planes: nine twin-engine bombers in V formation at 11,500 feet, coming fast. Rolling into shallow dives, Gayler and Peterson initiated their first attack from the side of the formation at 1639.

  The Japanese shot first. Streams of glowing tracer rounds reached toward the two Wildcats, but Gayler and Peterson held an important advantage. In addition to their high rate of speed, they presented only small frontal targets to the enemy gunners. Their own illuminated gun sights, meanwhile, were filled with a rapidly growing profile of the nearest bomber. Both men opened fire and scored lethal hits with their first pass. The Mitsubishi burst into flames and skidded out of the formation, revealing the ease with which the Type 1’s unprotected fuel tanks could be ignited.

  Moments later the rest of Gayler’s division joined the fight, and in the span of two minutes another two bombers fell into the sea.

  The battle intensified as the 2nd Chutai, now numbering just six bombers, came within range of the ships’ antiaircraft guns. The screening ships opened up with their main batteries, but just at that moment, Lexington turned into the wind to launch the last of her vulnerable planes, forcing her gunners to hold their fire lest the muzzle blast from the 5-inchers knock a departing aircraft out of control.

  High overhead, Gayler and his pilots suddenly found themselves in the midst of friendly fire as the first of the antiaircraft shells began to explode, closer to them than to the enemy bombers. Ignoring the angry black bursts, the fighters pressed their attacks against the Japanese formation. The next bomber to d
rop out was Nakagawa’s, badly damaged by Gayler and Peterson on their second pass. Both men continued firing as they raced through the formation, and yet another Mitsubishi fell to their accurate gunnery.

  Now only four bombers remained in formation. The absence of Nakagawa’s lead aircraft perhaps rattled the surviving aircrews, for they flew beyond the Lexington, wasting critical minutes while they regrouped. Nevertheless the four aircraft wheeled around and intitiated a fresh attack run, this time from astern. Shouldering past the flak and the slicing Wildcats, they reached the bomb release point just as the Lexington’s last fueled-up plane climbed away from the flight deck. As if a switch had been thrown, the carrier’s antiaircraft guns cut loose with a pent-up roar. Simultaneously, Sherman ordered a series of full-rudder turns to spoil the enemy’s aim. The maneuvering worked. Eight large bombs tumbled from the four remaining Mitsubishis, but none landed near the speeding, twisting carrier.

  Lighter now by 1,100 pounds apiece, the bombers accelerated in a bid to escape the Wildcats and antiaircraft fire. One covered only a few miles before it was shot down; the other three separated while diving to gain more speed.

  Jimmy Thach and Doc Sellstrom, having just reached combat altitude after taking off from Lexington, immediately gave chase. They were joined by most of the pilots from the 2nd and 3rd divisions, whose blood was up. So far the Wildcats had downed six bombers in a lopsided fight, and everyone was eager to get a share of the action. This may have prompted two young pilots to approach the bombers recklessly, underestimating the Mitsubishis’ lethal armament.

  The first was Lt. j.g. Howard L. Johnson, whose fighter was hit by gunfire from a fleeing bomber. He boldly attempted to keep pace, but as he drifted back he was sucked directly behind the Mitsubishi. Its tail gunner slammed several 20mm rounds into the Wildcat, wounding Johnson in the legs and putting the engine out of action. After bailing out and landing safely in the water, Johnson floated for only a few minutes before one of the screening destroyers picked him up.