Whirlwind

by Barrett Tillman

  Arnold sought to keep 20th Air Force headquarters close to the seat of power in Washington for geopolitical reasons. While enjoying cordial relations with his British allies, he feared that the charming, accomplished Admiral Louis Mountbatten—Allied theater commander in Southeast Asia—would try to winkle some B-29 squadrons away from American control in the CBI. Hap Arnold would have none of that—the Superfortress represented AAF doctrine, missions, and ultimately a postwar independent U.S. Air Force. Supporting one’s allies was one thing; ceding them authority over the AAF’s crown jewel was quite another.

  Regardless of who controlled the B-29s, logistics were appalling—no surprise considering that Wolfe’s command operated at the end of the war’s longest supply line. Fuel was a constant worry: at least seven B-29 trips carrying gasoline from India were needed to support one combat takeoff from China. Therefore, supplies had to be flown from India over the Himalaya mountains to China.

  The Himalayas stretch across six nations and 1,500 miles with 100 peaks over 22,000 feet. During the war some 450 aircraft succumbed to the climate and terrain, forming the fabled “aluminum trail” across “The Hump.” Some B-29 crews logged more than thirty trips over the Himalayas, and little could be taken for granted. The 40th Group alone lost nine aircraft. Said crewman Harry Changnon, “We lost a lot of friends flying over those mountains.”

  To alleviate some of the strain on Superfortress engines and airframes, more than 200 B-24 Liberators were converted to C-109 tankers, each capable of ferrying 2,900 gallons of fuel. But the project dead-ended when the modified Liberators failed to perform as expected.

  Japanese fighters were the least of the problems that Allied aircrews found flying The Hump. However, occasional interceptions occurred, and a peculiar legend grew up surrounding an enemy pilot. Given the unlikely moniker of “Broken Nose Charlie,” he was said to prey on transport aircraft, though presumably he would tackle any lone bombers that crossed his path. However, only one B-29 was intercepted over the Himalayas and the shootout ended in a no-score tie.

  On June 5, Wolfe’s command launched its first combat mission: ninety-eight B-29s departing their Kharagpur bases for Bangkok. The target was Siam’s major rail facility, but a heavy cloud deck prevented visual bombing. Weather and aborts reduced the strike force to seventy-seven, of which forty-eight tried bombing by radar. Results were unobserved, but sporadic antiaircraft fire and a handful of enemy fighters made no effect on the bombers cruising as high as 27,000 feet. However, six planes were lost in accidents, including one that suffered engine failure on takeoff, and three ditched in the Bay of Bengal with fifteen men killed or missing.

  In the meantime, planning proceeded for strikes against Japan. Each mission to the enemy homeland would involve enormous distances, starting from the Calcutta area and flying to the Chengtu staging bases more than 1,600 statute miles northeast—some seven hours’ flight time. Even from the Chinese fields, the B-29’s radius of action (with a small fuel reserve) permitted missions of a near identical distance to Japan, barely nipping the northern and western parts of Kyushu, southernmost of the home islands. Consequently, one of the few Japanese targets in range was an aircraft factory at Omura, twenty miles north of Japan’s eighth largest city, Nagasaki. It was as if B-29s took off from Los Angeles, refueled in Rockford, Illinois, and continued on to bomb a target in Newfoundland.

  But even before the first mission to Japan, complications arose from an unexpected quarter when Chiang Kai-shek made a request of the senior American officer in China: slender, bespectacled Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell. Owing to increasing Japanese pressure, the Chinese generalissimo wanted Superfortresses to support the Nationalist army with tactical missions. Stilwell, who held none too high an opinion of Chiang (whom he called “the peanut”), had no authority to divert XX Bomber Command from its strategic mission, which was exactly the reason Hap Arnold had decided to run 20th Air Force from Washington.

  Meanwhile, plans continued for Mission 2: next stop, Japan.

  Target Japan

  In the fall of 1944 returning navy ace Saburo Sakai surveyed Tokyo with his remaining eye. “The city appeared drab and lifeless,” he wrote. “Most of the stores were closed, their windows empty. The significance was clear. There were no goods to sell, and the owners were away, working in war plants. The few stores which remained open hardly resembled the colorful and well-stocked establishments I once knew. Few goods were on display, and for the most part these were crude substitutes. The Allied blockade of Japan was pinching the national stomach severely.”

  Sakai had returned to a nation perennially hungry. Forced to import food to sustain its growing population since the turn of the century, Dai Nippon tightened its belt, then cinched up another notch. And another. Sugar had been rationed since December 1940; rice two months later. Other commodities such as fruit, vegetables, salt, and even matches were progressively added to the list.

  When general food rationing began in February 1942 the average daily intake was already less than 60 percent of most Americans. Coffee became a luxury, and a monthly fasting day was introduced. Among the few granted exceptions were miners and heavy industry workers: those who provided the steel to augment Japan’s fighting spirit. Meanwhile, despite a dedicated bureaucracy to enforce food regulations, a growing black market flourished.

  Faced with an American embargo in August 1941, strategic materials had been stockpiled, notably oil and iron. “Inessential driving” was banned eighteen months before Pearl Harbor, and soon thereafter production of rubber-soled tabi shoes was halted to save raw material.

  Certainly the Japanese fabric was threadbare. After three years of unrelenting effort, the economy—one-seventeenth of America’s in 1941—had reached full stretch.

  It was about to be stretched further.

  In ten months of operations from India and China between June 1944 and April 1945, XX Bomber Command launched forty-nine missions. Only nine targeted Japan, the first being flown the night of June 15–16. It was a harbinger of doom for Tokyo, far surpassing the pinpricks inflicted by the Doolittle Raiders more than two years before, or the more recent 11th Air Force missions from the Aleutians to the Kurils (see Appendix A). However, the campaign involved more conflict than was evident.

  As commander of the India B-29s, Ken Wolfe felt constant pressure from Washington. In accordance with Hap Arnold’s wishes, he wanted to put the maximum number of bombers over Japanese soil but an “acceptable number” was problematical. Seeming to care little for the immense logistics problems inherent to the CBI, Arnold said he expected at least 100 bombers to be dispatched “on or before 15 June, weather permitting.”

  Wolfe advised Washington that ninety planes might leave India but barely half would reach Japan; the situation might improve if the mission were delayed a few days for extra maintenance. Arnold was unyielding: aside from his own professional investment in the B-29 program, he was aware of President Roosevelt’s sense of urgency in supporting Chiang and striking the enemy homeland. Following orders, Wolfe sent ninety-two bombers north to Chengtu on June 13, with a dozen aborts and one loss. That left seventy-nine planes arriving in China; fewer would be able to fly the mission.

  The takeoff from China was watched by a crowd that seemingly included most of the generals in the CBI. Not least was U.S. theater commander “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, the bone-deep infantryman who seemed dubious about the utility of the military flying machine.

  The 58th Wing put up sixty-eight Superfortresses (one crashed on takeoff), confirming Wolfe’s skepticism to Arnold. Furthermore, targeting was complicated by the fact that from Chengtu even the B-29 could barely reach Kyushu, and there existed only limited intelligence on Japanese facilities. Flying at night helped avoid detection but also complicated navigation and bombing. Consequently, the Superforts went after one of the known industrial plants, the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata, identifiable near Shimonoseki Strait separating Kyushu from Honshu.

 
; Tactics were necessarily simple at that early date. The Boeings flew individually, forming a lengthy bomber stream similar to RAF procedure over Europe. Taking another page from the British book, Wolfe dispatched two pathfinders from each group, timed to arrive about five minutes ahead of the main force and mark the target with incendiaries.

  Only forty-seven bombers reached the primary target, and they straggled overhead for nearly two hours in an altitude band extending from merely 8,000 feet up to 21,000, depending on pilot preference. Penetrating the night sky over northern Kyushu, they released 221 tons of bombs, inflicting marginal damage on Yawata. Nine B-29s, unable to reach Japan, attacked other authorized targets.

  Weather proved a far greater problem than the Japanese. The challenge was immense: trying to bomb visually at night, through a five-tenths cloud deck above a blacked-out target. Only fifteen bombardiers felt confident enough to toggle their 500-pounders visually, the others relying upon radar. The results were beyond disappointing: one bomb struck the steelworks.

  Deprived of daylight, the defenders were forced to rely upon their scanty night fighter organization. The Japanese Army Air Force’s 4th Sentai, or regiment, put up six flights of four twin-engine Nick fighters, with no option but to rely upon the regiment’s partly trained aircrews.

  Among the interceptors was First Lieutenant Isamu Kashiide, an ace from the 1939 Manchurian clash with the Soviets. Glimpsing a silvery streamlined shape in the glare of searchlights, he gaped at the sight. “I was scared! It was known that the B-29 was a huge plane, but when I saw my opponent it was much larger than I had ever expected. There was no question that when compared with the B-17, the B-29 was indeed the ‘Superfortress’!”

  Few Nicks got close enough to shoot at the bombers, and just one pilot scored. Warrant Officer Sadamitsu Kimura found a B-29 coned in a searchlight pattern and throttled his twin-engine fighter to near collision range. His target was Limber Dugan of the 468th Group, four months out of the factory at Omaha.

  Peering through his gunsight, Kimura squinted at the glare reflecting off the bomber’s aluminum skin. Apparently the crew thought that the fighter was going to ram, as Captain Dushan D. Ivanovic pulled up abruptly. Kimura pressed the triggers, slamming 20mm and 37mm shells into the huge airframe. He pulled away, glimpsing a piece tumbling from the tail as his victim spun into the darkness below. Then he went hunting for more.

  In two hours the 4th Sentai claimed seven kills, three by the intrepid Kimura. In truth, Limber Dugan was the only loss to fighters, with no survivors. However, five other B-29s were lost in accidents and six more sustained flak damage. Another bomber with engine problems landed at Neihsiang Airdrome well northeast of Chengtu and vulnerable to attack. The Japanese, vigilant to an opportunity, bombed and strafed the sitting duck to destruction.

  In all, fifty-seven American fliers and a war correspondent were listed killed or missing.

  The first homeland mission had demonstrated the problems inherent to XX Bomber Command. Hitting Yawata used up the fuel stockpiled at the Chengtu fields, forcing a delay of further missions until more gasoline could be ferried over The Hump.

  However, the Superfortress’s debut in homeland skies could not help but make an impression on individual Japanese. An author, Masataka Kosaka, would write of “the sight of a glistening B-29 trailing white vapor high in the sky.” It engendered an eerie mixture of fascination and fear, comparable to the emotion that American sailors would shortly experience in watching kamikazes. But the Superfortress represented something more. Kosaka declared, “its beauty and technological perfection . . . came to symbolize the superior strength and higher civilization of the United States.”

  The military view was expressed by Lieutenant Commander Mitsugu Kofukuda of the Sixth Air Corps: “By the time the B-29 Superfortress appeared . . . we had achieved great strides in increasing the firepower of our fighters and interceptors. However, even these steps came too late, for the B-29 represented a remarkable advance over the tough B-17, and we were unable to keep pace with American engineering developments.”

  * * * * *

  On July 4, Ken Wolfe was recalled to Washington for a session on Arnold’s carpet. Despite his avuncular demeanor, Hap was not a happy warrior. Officially he lauded Wolfe but behind the scenes he was testy and impatient. Some 20th Air Force office politics only exacerbated the situation. The chief of staff, Haywood Hansell, expressed displeasure with Wolfe’s attitude, which was considered pessimistic. Though having few friends at court, Wolfe saw his view as realistic: his command had been committed to combat prematurely without adequate training or support. In truth, Wolfe probably did the best he could at the time. His role in bringing the Superfortress into service merited more recognition than condemnation.

  Nevertheless, Wolfe was out after only three missions, the second to Japan occurring while he was in Washington. Learning that he had been “promoted” to overseeing B-29 production and training, he cabled the 58th Wing that he would not be returning and that a new commander would be named. That could only be Major General Curtis LeMay, America’s foremost bomber commander, just returned to the States from England. Meanwhile, wing commander Blondie Saunders would remain in caretaker status until returning stateside for a new assignment.

  Years later, Curtis LeMay blamed the higher-ups (by inference, Hap Arnold) for the gremlins dogging the B-29 and unfairly treating Ken Wolfe: “People sat around a table and said, ‘Let K.B. [Wolfe] take it out there. He’ll be able to do it.’” As an unexcelled operator, LeMay recognized that Wolfe the engineer had been handed a near impossible task.

  Three weeks passed before enough supplies could be stocked to support the second Empire mission, and it left much to be desired. On the night of July 7—the day after Saunders temporarily took over from Wolfe—just seventeen Superfortresses were sent to bomb Sasebo, Omura, and Tobata. Three diverted to secondary and “last resort” targets around Hankow, China. The mini-mission cost two planes, including one from the 40th Group that burned from an electrical fire on the ground. Another, from the 462nd, ditched with three of the crew drowned. The Omura plant was untouched and other damage was light.

  On the 29th, the 58th Wing launched against the steel works at Anshan, Manchuria. One plane was ganged by fighters; one succumbed to flak and another crashed near Likiang. But the mission was noteworthy in that one B-29 was lost forever when it landed at Vladivostok with flak damage. Ramp Tramp thus became the first Superfortress retained by America’s Soviet allies, being reverse-engineered after the war to produce the Tupolev Tu-4 “Bull,” Russia’s first nuclear-capable bomber.

  The third B-29 mission to Japan was flown on August 10–11, nearly two months after the first. Two dozen bombers attacked individually in the Nagasaki area. More significantly, that same night thirty-one bombers staged through Ceylon to attack a Japanese refinery in Sumatra, Dutch East Indies. Other Superfortresses dropped mines in the river near the city of Palembang on Sumatra. From Ceylon to Palembang and back was an eye-watering 3,900 miles, the longest unrefueled mission of the war. Only one aircraft was lost, suffering fuel exhaustion. The B-29 still had its share of gremlins, but the Superfortress had truly stretched its legs.

  On August 20, Blondie Saunders led seventy-five bombers from Chengtu, flying with Colonel Howard Engler of the 468th Group, aiming to restrike the Yawata steel works. As usual, Japanese agents had ample time to send word of the takeoff, and radar provided warning of the sixty-one bombers that reached Kyushu. At 4:30 P.M., Japan’s Western Air Defense Command scrambled four army fighter regiments, which put up eighty-nine aircraft, while the Imperial Navy launched elements of two air groups for a total of more than 100 Japanese interceptors.

  Flying in threes and fours, the bombers began their run-in, bracketed by heavy flak between 20,000 and 26,000 feet. The enemy ground gunners hit one of Engler’s planes, knocking Ready Teddy out of the pockmarked air, and damaged eight others.

  Each Superfortress released its six 500-pounders. The
n, free of the flak zone, the bombers turned for home just as the fighters rolled in.

  Leading the attack was the 4th Sentai’s Lieutenant Isamu Kashiide, who had first seen B-29s on the initial Yawata strike in June. Flying a Nick, Kashiide initiated a head-on attack against the 468th, targeting the flight led by Colonel Robert Clinkscales, previously General Douglas MacArthur’s personal pilot. Kashiide’s wingman was Sergeant Shigeo Nobe, who radioed his intention to ram a “B-san.” No one ever knew if his gunner shared his enthusiasm.

  Clinkscales’s Gertrude C, named for his mother, was closing its bomb-bay doors when the two Nicks attacked. Nobe made a quick turn, lined up the leading bomber, and rolled into knife-edge flight, wings vertical. His upraised right wing smashed into the B-29’s left wing.

  Onlookers—Japanese and American—watched in appalled fascination. Some witnessed the suicide as if in slow motion. The impact ignited a fireball from the bomber’s wing tanks as the Nick’s shattered airframe tumbled onward through the diamond formation.

  Burning wreckage flashed past the next bomber, which emerged unharmed. However, the tail-end Boeing could not avoid all the debris. Captain Ornell Stauffer hauled Calamity Sue into an abrupt climb that nearly cleared the worst of Nobe’s wreckage. But enough of the Nick remained intact to sever one of Sue’s horizontal stabilizers. As she dropped into a death spiral, only one crewman bailed out.