by Bruce Gamble
But Kenney was not persuaded. Convinced that the “Nip fighters” would fiercely contest the bombers at midday and ruin their accuracy, he told Walker to stick with the original plan. Kenney explained that he “would rather have the bombers not in formation for a dawn attack than in formation for a show at noon.”
If Kenney’s memoirs are accurate, Walker received clear orders, but he did not follow them. Something even stronger than the fundamentals of duty and honor—perhaps stubbornness, or deeply rooted convictions, or just the fact that he was tired of losing arguments to Kenney—compelled Walker to defy his boss. He delayed the takeoff time, but did not inform Kenney. Moreover, when the strike plan was distributed to the participants the day prior to the mission, the most successful heavy bombing squadron in the theater was not included in “the show.” Despite the fact that Kenney had ordered “a full-scale bomber attack,” his favorite squadron was excluded from the mission.
For more than sixty-five years, members of the 63rd Bomb Squadron have wondered why.
The whole truth will probably never be uncovered, but pilot Jim Dieffenderfer, a peripheral observer during the planning stages of the mission, later shared some compelling insight. When Walker revealed his intention to bomb Rabaul at midday, Bill Benn objected. “You’re going to lose two airplanes,” he advised Walker. “You shouldn’t try going into Rabaul at high noon. It’s best to keep bombing it at night.”
There can be little doubt that Walker resented the major’s critical opinion, especially after losing the dispute over bomb fuses. Benn represented the opposition, with direct support from Kenney. Dieffenderfer believes that Walker reacted personally, retaliating in the only way he could, by saying, “Fine, we just won’t take your squadron,” or words to that effect.
Walker’s frustration can only be surmised, but he was obviously aware that a number of recent disputes had not gone his way. The fact that Bill Benn was Kenney’s protégé probably did not matter any longer. Walker had already made up his mind to defy Kenney by attacking Rabaul at midday, and faced little additional risk in denying Kenney’s favorite squadron a role in the mission. Walker may have also surmised that his tenure as head of V Bomber Command was growing short. If so, the forthcoming mission represented his last opportunity to showcase the strategies he had championed for years. Thus, his decision to violate orders would have been a relatively easy one. As the old saying goes, it’s easier to seek forgiveness than permission.
Whatever was said between Walker and Benn, the animosity carried over to the afternoon of January 4. Although Benn’s squadron was not going to participate in the mission, he attended the briefing conducted by Walker. So did Jim Dieffenderfer, who later recalled that Benn did not sit quietly.
I don’t think Benn and Walker got along very well. I sat in on the briefing before that mission with Benn, who had somehow gotten word that our squadron wasn’t going. During the briefing, Walker gave the time that the planes would arrive at such-and-such a place. Benn looked in his little notebook and said, “General, you’re going to be about eight minutes early.” Walker got his navigator and said, “Go check that out.” The navigator came back after a few minutes and said, “Sir, he’s right; we were a little bit off.” How Benn knew that, I don’t know. But he also knew that Walker wasn’t supposed to go on the mission.
The crews scheduled to fly reacted to Walker’s plan with a buzz of consternation. Frederick Wesche III of the 64th Bomb Squadron recalled: “When this was announced [that the attack] was going to be done in broad daylight at noontime, as a matter of fact at low altitude, something like 5,000 feet over the most heavily defended target in the Pacific … most of us went away shaking our heads. Many of us believed that we wouldn’t come back from it.”
The absence of the 63rd Bomb Squadron meant that Walker could not launch the total effort Kenney had asked for. To further complicate matters, bad weather in Australia interfered with the plan. The B-24s at Iron Range were unable to take off due to heavy rain, leaving Walker with only the aircraft at Port Moresby: six Liberators and six Fortresses. Twelve bombers were not nearly enough for him to adequately prove the tactics he espoused, but the mission got underway as planned on the morning of January 5, 1943.
Independent of the main strike, three B-17s took off at dawn to attack Lakunai airdrome with the intention of suppressing enemy fighters. One Fortress aborted because of mechanical trouble, but the other two reached Rabaul at approximately 0900. Finding it socked in by a low overcast, they loitered overhead for approximately thirty minutes and conducted three dry runs without dropping their bombs. The delay provided ample time for a dozen A6M3 Hamps of Air Group 582 to take off and climb toward the two bombers.
At 0930 the Fortresses pickled their bombs in the vicinity of Vunakanau. Curiously, the crews reported interception by “Me-109s,” though there were no German fighters in the region. The crewmen were probably seeing their first Nakajima Ki-43 Oscars of the Japanese Army Air Force, which strongly resembled Zeros in appearance as well as agility. The primary difference was the Oscar’s limited armament: a pair of 12.7mm (.50-caliber) machine guns mounted in the engine cowling.
A patrol of Oscars from the 2nd Chutai, 11th Flying Regiment, which had arrived at Rabaul only three weeks earlier, intercepted the B-17s first. Soon after the action got underway, one fighter was shot down in full view of everyone on the ground. According to the diary of an unnamed soldier embarked on Clyde Maru, the Japanese were “infuriated” by the sight.
Subsequently a swarm of army and navy fighters ganged up on the Fortress flown by Capt. Jean A. Jack, 403rd Bomb Squadron. They attacked head-on, knocking the B-17’s ball turret out of commission on the first pass. A sharp-shooting Zero pilot also severely damaged the left wing. His bullets and cannon fire disabled the outboard engine and tore through the main spar, damaging the engine controls and oil cooler. The left fuel tank was punctured, and holes appeared in the side of the radio compartment. Jack was unable to feather the damaged engine, which vibrated badly as the crew fought off persistent fighter attacks for thirty minutes. Finally, a hundred miles south of Rabaul, the Japanese broke off their pursuit.
Realizing that his shot-up Fortress would never make it to Port Moresby, Jack headed southwest and searched for signs of habitation among the small islands off New Guinea. Near the D’Entrecasteaux Islands he spotted an islet with native huts visible near the beach and safely ditched the Fortress just offshore.
THE MAIN STRIKE got underway at approximately 0800 as crews manned their bombers and commenced preflight routines. Walker, listed officially as the command pilot, was a passenger aboard a B-17F named San Antonio Rose, piloted by Maj. Allan Lindbergh, commanding officer of the 64th Bomb Squadron. Also riding as an observer was Maj. Jack W. Bleasdale, executive officer of the 43rd Bomb Group. With two passengers aboard in addition to her regular crew, Rose lifted off from Jackson airdrome at 0848, followed by the rest of the assigned aircraft.
By the time the raiders neared Rabaul some three hours later, the undercast had cleared. Conditions for bombing were ideal, but during the long flight the bombers had become separated into two distinct groups, diminishing their potential strength. The first to reach the target were the Liberators. Led by Maj. Philip J. Kuhl, commanding officer of the 319th Bomb Squadron, the six B-24s approached Simpson Harbor precisely at noon. Crewmen could clearly see enemy aircraft scrambling from the airdromes down below, but aside from bursts of antiaircraft fire, there was little interference as the bombardiers selected individual targets and initiated their bomb runs at eight thousand feet.
From the air, the results of the attack looked impressive. Lieutenant William L. Whitacre, a pilot in the 319th, reported “at least three ships hit in the harbor and left burning.” In another Liberator, the bombardier claimed to have definitely sunk a ten-thousand-ton merchant vessel.
Within minutes, however, the Liberator crews encountered a series of aggressive frontal attacks by approximately fifteen interceptors. Agai
n there were Oscars mixed in with Imperial Navy Rei-sen, but all enemy fighters were reported as “Zeros” due to the Americans’ unfamiliarity with the Ki-43. Several B-24s received minor damage from gunfire and antiaircraft shells, although no casualties were reported among the crews. In return, gunners aboard the Liberators claimed two fighters destroyed, one of which may have been Sgt. Maj. Haruo Takagaki, a veteran of the China campaign with fifteen victories. His Ki-43 fell in flames, but unlike the navy pilots who scorned parachutes out of principle, Takagaki wore one that day and successfully bailed out.
Ten minutes behind the B-24s, Walker’s six B-17s separated before bombing individual targets. The crews claimed four or five direct hits against shipping but had little time to observe their handiwork before the fighters were on them. Fred Wesche, who had been concerned that the daylight strike would be a suicide mission, later gave the following account:
[W]e went over the target and all of us got attacked. [My plane] was shot up. Nobody was injured, fortunately, but the airplane was kind of banged up a little bit. We had to break formation over the target to bomb individually and then we were supposed to form up immediately after crossing the target; but no sooner had we dropped our bombs than my tail gunner says, “Hey, there’s somebody in trouble behind us.” So we made a turn and looked back and here was an airplane, one of our airplanes, going down, smoking and … headed for a cloud bank with the whole cloud of fighters on top of him. There must have been about fifteen or twenty fighters. Of course, they gang up on a cripple, you know, polish that one off with no trouble.
The stricken aircraft was San Antonio Rose. As the rest of the B-17s withdrew southward over New Britain, the damaged Fortress lost altitude, its left outboard engine trailing smoke. Japanese fighters continued to attack relentlessly, causing it to fall even farther behind. When last seen, San Antonio Rose was heading into a cloud with four or five fighters still in pursuit.
The remaining crews returned to Port Moresby and submitted their reports. Altogether, ten vessels were allegedly hit by bombs, and various gunners received official credit for the destruction of seven enemy fighters. In light of the collective claims, the participating squadrons portrayed the mission as highly successful. However, the effort sought by General Kenney—the destruction of the Lae convoy—had been a total bust.
The Japanese had hardly been fazed. Updated intelligence estimates placed as many as eighty-seven ships at Rabaul on January 5, yet only ten of those vessels—five destroyers and five transports—made up the important convoy. Thus, it would have been virtually impossible for the bombardiers to know which ships to target.
An even greater irony was uncovered decades later by researcher Richard Dunn. His astounding collection of Japanese documents and diary excerpts provides ample evidence that the convoy departed from Rabaul at noon Japan Standard Time, which correlates to 1000 hours in the time zone utilized by the Allies. Consequently, the convoy wasn’t even in the harbor when Walker’s aircraft attacked at 1200: the ships had departed some two hours earlier.
The bombers did succeed in sinking Keifuku Maru, a small Imperial Army ship of less than six thousand tons that was unloading cargo just off Kokopo. Two other merchant ships were damaged, as was the destroyer Tachikaze, hit by a bomb for the second time in as many weeks. Aircraft losses amounted to three Ki-43s shot down, with at least one pilot rescued.
The American crews recounted what they knew of the missing B-17, which wasn’t much. When San Antonio Rose failed to return by late afternoon, it became obvious that the crew was down somewhere. Word spread quickly that General Walker’s plane was missing in action.
George Kenney reacted angrily when he learned that his bomber commander had defied him—and not just once, but twice. “Walker off late,” he wrote in his daybook. “Disobeyed orders by going along as well as not starting his mission when I told him.” Later, when he heard that Walker’s plane had failed to return, Kenney ordered all available reconnaissance planes to search the islands along the route to Rabaul. The order was superfluous. Walker was held in high esteem by many airmen among the bomber groups, and no one needed to be told to search for the general or the other missing crewmen.
That evening, Kenney was informed that Walker’s plane had been located on a coral reef in the Trobriand Islands. Still perturbed, he told General MacArthur that he intended to punish Walker with an official reprimand and send him to Australia “for a couple of weeks.”
MacArthur agreed in principle but then suggested, “If he doesn’t come back, I’ll put him in for a Medal of Honor.”
The next day, the Fates had a surprise in store for both Kenney and MacArthur. The downed airmen were plucked from a small island fifty miles south of the Trobriands but turned out to be Jean Jack and his crew. There was some embarrassment for Jack, who later admitted that while his rescuers were pleased at finding him, they were “quite disappointed when they found out his crew wasn’t General Walker’s.”
The search for Walker and the men of San Antonio Rose continued. On January 6, a B-24 flown by Lt. George M. Rose took off from Port Moresby on a dedicated search and failed to return. The mystery of the plane’s disappearance has never been definitively solved, but the combat log of Air Group 582 indicates that Hamps of the 2nd Chutai intercepted and shot down a lone B-24 over Wide Bay on the morning of January 6. The area would have been a logical place for Lieutenant Rose and his crew to search for the missing B-17.
In the meantime, other reconnaissance aircraft had discovered the enemy convoy bound for Lae. Among the bombers that shadowed the vessels on January 6 was a Liberator piloted by Lt. Walter E. Higgins, who decided to make a solo bomb run. But his B-24 was damaged by shipboard antiaircraft fire and then attacked by a whole chutai of Zeros, which forced Higgins to ditch near a small island south of New Britain.
B-24s were prone to breaking apart during ditching attempts, and in Higgins’s case the bomb bays caved in when the Liberator contacted the water, causing the death of two crewmen. The 90th Bomb Group’s history of bad luck was extended by the loss of two Liberators and twelve crewmen that day.
The hunt for Walker’s aircraft and crew was now broadened to include the two additional bombers that went missing on January 6. This soon led to another odd twist. While conducting a search on January 7, Lt. James A. McMurria of the 90th Bomb Group, 319th Bomb Squadron discovered several crewmen stranded on a small island. Hoping to identify the crew, he dropped supplies along with a note that gave simple instructions. If part of Walker’s crew, the men were to proceed to the north end of the island; if part of Higgins’s, they were to head south. The men headed north, but when the rescue team arrived the next day, they found Higgins and his crew rather than Walker. Again there was some embarrassment, but Higgins maintained that his deception was not intentionally sinister; he simply concluded that assistance would be dispatched more quickly for a general and took his men to the north end of the islet to expedite their rescue.
Despite days and weeks of searching, no trace was found of Walker or San Antonio Rose. Kenney and MacArthur returned to Brisbane on January 9, having seen the Buna campaign to its successful conclusion, and MacArthur officially announced on the 11th that Walker was missing in action. A wizard at putting a positive spin on bad news, MacArthur issued a statement that pushed the limits of credibility. Walker, he said, “led a bombardment group which successfully attacked enemy shipping in Rabaul harbor. In this attack from nine to eleven enemy ships were destroyed.” In MacArthur’s world, it never would have done to state the truth: that Walker had led exactly twelve bombers over Rabaul and sank one ship.
Later that month Kenney wrote a letter to Walker’s sons, Douglas and Kenneth Jr. His words of were full of encouragement, suggesting that the general might still be found, but Kenney had no doubt about the outcome. He was convinced that Walker would never be found, and his hunch proved correct. Over the past six and a half decades, no scrap of wreckage or the remains of any crewmembers have been located.
Nevertheless, intriguing questions still linger. Sketchy reports that two or more crewmen parachuted from the plane and were subsequently captured by the Japanese have circulated for years. One source was Bishop Leo Scharmach, the vicar of Vunapope. A witness to the sinking of the Keifuku Maru, he later shared what he knew of the raid in his memoirs.
The attacking planes had their casualties also. At least one of them was shot down. Some of the surviving airmen were co-prisoners with some of our missionaries in Rabaul. To these the pilots related the story behind the daylight raid. An American general, who was leading the flotilla, had insisted on this venture against much contrary advice. When over Rabaul, his plane was hit, but did not crash in the vicinity. Possibly it came down in the jungle.
Five months after Walker was declared missing, a B-17 of the 43rd Bomb Group was shot down near Rabaul by an Imperial Navy night fighter. The crew’s sole survivor, captured by the Japanese, was shown documents naming Major Bleasdale as an alleged POW. The few details that Lt. Jose L. Holguin was given made it sound as though General Walker had been killed or mortally wounded aboard the aircraft and thus had no chance of bailing out. Circumstantially, a comment by Scharmach supports Holguin’s story. “We do not know if [the general] survived,” wrote the bishop, “but we are sure the Japanese never heard about him … otherwise they would have triumphantly boasted about it.”