The worst American losses were sustained on the enemy’s ground.
Prisoners
Every Allied airman who parachuted into captivity knew what he faced. Before the March 9 Tokyo fire raid, XXI Bomber Command had instructed aircrews: “If you are shot down, try and get picked up by the Japanese military as quickly as possible. The civilians will kill you outright.” The instructions proved accurate, occasionally in reverse fashion. In February an Imperial Navy pilot had bailed out of his stricken fighter. Badly burned, he was mistaken for an American and beaten to death by a civilian mob. Thereafter Japanese aviators usually wore a rising sun patch on their flight suits.
Nearly 550 Allied fliers were captured in operations over the home islands, excluding the Kurils. However, twenty-nine were captured in the barest sense, being killed almost immediately upon reaching the ground. Another 132 were murdered in prison and ninety-four more died in captivity, notably in a Tokyo fire raid the night of May 25–26, when sixty-two airmen perished in a western suburb. The firestorm engulfed the area, burning the wooden jail and incinerating most of the POWs while 300 civilian prisoners were moved to safety. The few Americans who escaped the building were caught and beheaded by the Kempei Tai, the military police. Concluded navigator Hap Halloran, who had been confined with some of the casualties elsewhere, “May 25 was a very sad day. All B-29ers gave their best, always. Some gave their all.”
Most POWs were tortured; all were abused and some were rendered insane. Those held more than a few months emerged from prison as emaciated as some concentration camp survivors.
Dying in a flaming aircraft—or building—was perhaps not the worst fate possible. A scratch-built crew from the 29th Group was downed on May 5, and met horrid ends. Apparently all bailed out but one was murdered in midair when a Japanese fighter shredded his parachute canopy. Two were killed on the ground and another shot it out with enraged Japanese, literally saving the last bullet for himself. The pilot was captured and sent to Tokyo where he was tortured and interrogated but survived the ordeal. At least six others were moved to Kyushu Imperial University in Fukuoka, between Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There they were subjected to vivisection by the anatomy department. Reportedly some of the Japanese acquired a taste for human liver but no witnesses would so testify after the war. Eventually twenty-three Fukuoka military and medical personnel were found guilty of various charges; five received death sentences and four life terms. However, none were executed and all were freed by 1958.
Relatively few war crime perpetrators against Americans were punished owing to postwar big-picture concerns in Washington and Tokyo. Nor was anything like full justice possible, given thousands of incidents throughout Asia from 1937 to 1945. But even in the limited context of Allied personnel in Japan, accountability usually went begging. In one June 1945 incident an injured P-51 pilot being treated in an infirmary was delivered to a mob that lynched the American. Though some of those involved were known, none was punished.
The most egregious sanctioned murders occurred at Western Military District headquarters in Fukuoka on August 15, immediately after the emperor’s radio speech announcing the end of hostilities. Seventeen B-29 crewmen were dragged from their filthy cells, made to kneel outside, and their heads were severed from their bodies. Some perpetrators were imprisoned but no death sentences were carried out.
That left 283 Americans and seven Britons alive after the surrender, a survival rate of barely 50 percent versus about 99 percent in German hands. Concluded more than one survivor, “The time to get captured by the Japs was when they were winning.”
Return Visits
Unprecedented losses on the two previous missions convinced LeMay to shift tactics again. Ignoring Tokyo, which was already 51 percent destroyed, he sent his air fleet to Yokohama in daylight on May 29. Escorted by 100 Mustangs, 475 bombers wiped out nearly seven square miles of the business district and waterfront containing twenty specific targets. Most of the firebombs were dropped above 20,000 feet, and left a pall of smoke nearly reaching that height.
Some of the fifty-plus airborne interceptors got through the P-51 pickets and hacked down five B-29s, one by ramming. But in a sixty-five-minute brawl the Mustang Jockeys gunned down twenty-eight defenders, and the bombers staked a claim to six more. Though three more B-29s were lost in accidents, attrition had been conquered; from June onward it averaged less than one percent.
In a very short time—from late February through May—XXI Bomber Command had inflicted catastrophic damage upon the Japanese homeland. In May alone one-seventh of the nation’s built-up urban area had been devastated, raising the overall total to 36 percent. That amounted to a staggering ninety-four square miles, including more than 100 priority targets.
Despite the appalling evidence, many Japanese officials and citizens insisted that the misery befalling themselves and their nation was somehow illusory. In some cases reality kicked in only after the May fire blitz, when Home Affairs Minister Iwao Yamazaki conceded that civil defense was “considered to be futile.” About that time a police liaison officer with the Japanese Army Air Force admitted that the public increasingly regarded Dai Nippon’s defenses as “useless.”
Nevertheless, Tokyo’s cabinet insisted that the war would continue.
CHAPTER SIX
Pacific Ponies
The 1,500-Mile War
From B-29 bases on Guam, a glance at the map showed the next stepping-stone to Japan: the Bonin Islands, midway between the Marianas and Honshu, some 750 miles south of Tokyo. In early 1945 they also presented an excellent emergency field for stricken Superfortresses and put the home islands within range of the long-legged North American P-51D Mustang. With the Bonins in American hands, B-29s could have fighter escorts anywhere over southern Japan.
In February, Iwo Jima, the largest of the Bonins with three Japanese airfields, was taken by three Marine Corps divisions at enormous cost: 6,821 Americans killed and some 19,000 wounded. It ranked among the highest casualty rates sustained by U.S. forces in the twentieth century.
On March 4—two weeks before Iwo was declared secure—a B-29 named Dinah Might landed nearly out of gasoline on Motoyama Number 1, the southernmost field. The 9th Bomb Group’s Lieutenant Raymond Malo made the first of some 2,400 emergency stops that Superforts would log over the next five months. Most of the landings were precautionary, but if 10 percent of the crews were saved, that represented about 2,600 airmen.
Seventh Air Force fighters were ready to move to Iwo as soon as facilities were readied. Planning for very long range (VLR) escort missions had begun the previous summer, as Brigadier General Ernest M. Moore alerted his VII Fighter Command “Sunsetters” for the challenging mission.
“Mickey” Moore was typical of the young flying generals in the Army Air Forces. A thirty-seven-year-old West Pointer (class of ’31), he was an experienced fighter pilot who had been in the Pacific since 1939. Having assumed command in August 1944, he led from the front and landed the first Mustang on Iwo on March 6. Behind him were the three squadrons of the 15th Fighter Group. Eleven days later the first element of Colonel Kenneth Powell’s 21st Fighter Group arrived at Airfield Number 2. Many of his pilots were new, averaging about 300 hours flight time with perhaps twenty in P-51s. Though the group had recently transitioned from P-38 Lightnings, the pilots and the Mustangs were equal to the task.
Iwo Jima was crammed with airplanes: two Army night fighter squadrons, Navy and Marine strike aircraft, and air-sea rescue planes. But the P-51s were the most numerous and strategically the most important. They broke in slowly by flying local patrols, but Japanese aerial intrusions were rare—only two during May and June.
Other than flying, pilots on Iwo had precious little diversion, but some didn’t mind, preferring to focus on the job. Captain Harry Crim said, “Iwo was perhaps the most hostile ground environment an airman could find himself in. Nature provided an active volcano [Mount Suribachi], and man provided the war.”
There was literally
no place to go, not much to do, and precious little to see. The Army fliers did, however, find ways to spend their off-duty time—primarily in commerce with the eminently “negotiable” Navy Seabees. Busily engaged in expanding Airfields 1 and 2 (Number 3 was never completed), the sailors’ motto was, “We’ll do anything for whiskey.” When it was discovered that the Seabees had an ice machine but no booze, the law of supply and demand took over. The 21st Fighter Group traded fifteen bottles of whiskey for the ice machine, installation included.
The next priority was an officers club, which was constructed with the same interservice negotiations that attended procurement of the ice machine. Said one pilot, “When the war ended, we had enough supplies to last us another year and all the material and equipment to build a swimming pool—including a concrete mixer.” Eventually there was even a spa—the brainchild of the 21st Group’s flight surgeon, who suggested converting a bomb shelter into a sauna with piped-in hot water from Iwo’s sulfur springs. Harry Crim observed, “It really took out the kinks and probably added to our embellishment of mission accomplishments.”
Crim, an aggressive twenty-six-year-old Floridian, was one of the Sunsetters’ most experienced pilots with 2,200 flight hours. He had flown fifty P-38 missions in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, enduring sand, flies, and disease while losing fifty pounds. Consequently, he became “an Iwo booster.” He believed that being able to concentrate 100 percent on combat training, without serious diversions, was one of the island’s strong points. He helped his pilots devote their attention to flying and fighting and thus prevented their going “rock happy.”
Before the first VLR mission, something entirely unexpected literally brought the war to the pilots’ front door. The 21st Group had been ashore barely a week when, at 4:00 A.M. on March 27, eight dawn patrol pilots were walking to the field. They were suddenly overcome by 350 to 400 Japanese who poured out of underground caves and tunnels. Instantly the Mustang pilots were embroiled in a vicious infantry war.
Responding to the attack, Harry Crim and others established a skirmish line, moved the wounded to the rear, and shot it out with .45 pistols, .30 caliber carbines, and even Browning Automatic Rifles. After five hours of intermittent fighting, the marines ended the affair: some 330 Japanese were dead and eighteen captured. But VII Fighter Command had suffered heavily, with forty-four killed and nearly 100 wounded. Crim replaced the wounded commander of the 531st Squadron, and the next day the group flew its first mission, strafing the Bonins. After that debut, the next step was Tokyo itself.
The View from Tokyo
Whatever the challenges facing Mustang pilots, the latter-day samurai defending Japanese airspace had their own serious problems. By early 1945 more than three years of attrition had reversed Japan’s initial advantage in aircrew quality. Beginning with a pool of well-trained, often combat-experienced airmen, Japanese army and navy squadrons enjoyed a period of pilot superiority over their Allied opponents in the Philippines, Java, Burma, and elsewhere. But the edge of that aerial blade had been dulled in the sanguinary battles of 1942. Like every military elite, Japanese aviation lacked depth, and losses could not be replaced in kind. The varsity had to play almost every inning, while increasing numbers of Americans came off the bench, fresh and ready.
Consequently, when American aircraft began appearing in homeland skies in 1944, the emperor’s aviators were poorly prepared or equipped to counter them. Late that year even front-line combat units were showing a precipitous decline in flight hours. Taking one navy fighter squadron as an example, of thirty-three pilots only four were rated Class A—fully combat-ready—and just five had flown more than 500 hours (the median was 315 hours, while nearly half logged fewer than 200). Nevertheless, while fuel lasted most pilots flew thirty to fifty-five hours per month, trying to build badly needed experience.
In contrast, in 1945 many American fighter pilots entering combat had 600 hours in the cockpit, and some boasted over 1,000. The Japanese retained some star performers but the Yanks possessed immense depth across the entire roster.
Still, some Japanese aviators were dangerous by any measure. Arguably the most spectacular of Japan’s airmen was a naval aviator, Lieutenant (jg) Sadaaki Akamatsu. In a thirteen-year flying career he logged more than 6,000 hours, flying from land bases and from carriers. He had entered combat as a veteran fighter pilot, claiming four kills in his first dogfight over China in 1938.
It says much that so rebelliously unconventional a character as “Temei” Akamatsu could thrive in the rigid hierarchy of the Imperial Navy. A functional alcoholic, erratic and often personally violent, he carved a wide swath through the Pacific, from the Philippines to the Dutch Indies and Burma. Along the way he claimed downing squadrons of Allied aircraft, brashly proclaiming himself “King of the Aces.” To the amazement of his colleagues, he was commissioned in 1943.
Returning to Japan, Akamatsu joined the 302nd Naval Air Group at Atsugi. Under close scrutiny at home, he could not indulge himself to the extent he had abroad, but his drinking continued largely unabated. According to legend, when B-29 raids began in 1944, he lounged in a geisha house until informed by phone of inbound bombers. At that point reputedly he drove to the flight line, climbed in his fighter, and, roaring drunk, took off to engage the enemy. Regardless of his wild reputation, everyone acknowledged Akamatsu’s value in the air. Devoid of fear, the thirty-five-year-old ace readily tackled any odds.
On April 19, 1945, flying a Jack, Akamatsu waded into a group of Mustangs. “We spotted the enemy planes over the southern end of Tokyo Bay,” Akamatsu recalled. “Five Raidens raced into the fight. The enemy always kept their tail covered. . . . I hid behind a P-51, there was a blind spot. After following awhile I had the advantage to attack. I fired my guns from very close range and hit its fuel tank. Suddenly it fell on fire.”
The other Mustangs immediately responded, attacking Akamatsu head-on. Unperturbed—he had been in that situation repeatedly—he ignored the tracers swirling around him and responded with his four cannon. He claimed another kill before the P-51s broke off, probably short of fuel.
By skill or fortune, Akamatsu survived the war, making extravagant claims to anyone who listened. Quipped historian Henry Sakaida, Akamatsu claimed 260 victories when sober; 350 when drunk. But whatever the numbers, he met and matched every plane and pilot the Americans threw at him.
Despite the exceptional records of a few super-aces like Akamatsu, not even Japan’s finest squadrons could dent the American onslaught. Arguably the most professional air defense unit in Japan was Captain Minoru Genda’s 343rd Naval Air Group, boasting a high proportion of combat-experienced pilots with long victory records. In some twenty encounters between March and August 1945, Genda’s pilots boasted 170 victories. But close examination of U.S. records shows barely thirty successes against ninety Japanese losses. That’s instructive—by 1945 Japan’s finest fighter wing claimed a two-to-one kill-loss ratio but in fact finished on the short end of one-to-three.
In truth, Japanese aviators were triple-damned. They often faced superior numbers of better aircraft flown by generally more competent pilots. In the end, facing a losing battle like their Luftwaffe allies, the emperor’s fliers fought for their comrades and their own self-respect.
Riding a Mustang
For American fighter pilots, Iwo Jima was the start of a long-range war. In 1945 a P-51 pilot based near London knew that his Mustang’s 750-mile radius could take him well beyond Germany: Berlin was “only” 590 miles away. But the Mustang could fly to Poznan or Vienna, down to Trieste at the head of the Adriatic, or to Firenze, Italy. Discounting that Spain was neutral, he could fly beyond Barcelona and back without landing. The difference was that, excepting the English Channel, the Britain-based pilot flew over land. For the fliers of VII Fighter Command, the distance was entirely over water.
The lurking dread faced by fighter pilots flying very long range escorts from Iwo Jima cannot be understood by anyone who has never taken a single
-engine airplane beyond sight of land. Flying 1,500 miles round-trip, a pilot developed enhanced hearing. Over water he might hear—or imagine—little hiccups in the satin-smooth purr of his Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Maybe it was just the spark plugs fouling on the return trip. Nursing its remaining fuel, the Mustang would lope along at 210 mph.
Returning southbound from Japan, the flier would wriggle on his seat cushion. He was “butt sprung,” the parachute pack feeling more uncomfortable than ever. There was no way to adjust his buttocks so they didn’t hurt. Five and a half hours into a seven-hour mission, the glamour of flying “the Cadillac of the skies” diminished in proportion to the ache of his sciatic nerve. He squirmed in the confined cockpit, stomped his feet on the floor, and tried to ignore the Pacific sun beating down through the canopy. He was tired and hot and bored.
Two hours before, the youngster had reveled in the firepower at his fingertips and the raw thrill of flying at fifty feet, shooting anything that moved. Now he stifled a yawn. That, too, was war.
Thirty years later General Mickey Moore wrote, “I don’t believe there is any question about the P-51 being the best prop fighter of World War II. It was a top air fighter and, hence, best for escort missions and equal to the P-47 as an attacker against ground targets.” Squadron and group commanders were just as enthusiastic and described the sleek North American as “perfect for these missions.”
With their heavy fuel loads, the Mustangs needed a long takeoff run, even at sea level. Originally the Iwo Jima strips were barely 2,000 feet long, and that was often inadequate for B-29 emergencies, when Superfortresses could run off the end. After a typical mission, fifty or more Superfortresses might land on Iwo rather than risk the extra 700 miles to the Marianas. The hazards also extended to the locals: the 531st Fighter Squadron’s flight line coffee tent was wiped out three times before it was moved to the upwind side of the runway, away from landing aircraft.
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