We did not take off for Luzon until 10:00 a.m. since all the fighters first had to fly on to Tainan for regrouping, arming, and new orders. We left Tainan with a formation of twenty-seven fighters. Over Clark Field, we found not a single target. For thirty minutes we circled the burned-out American base, but failed to sight a plane either on the ground or in the air.
The group turned north to fly cover for the Japanese convoy landing troops at Vigan. One light cruiser of the 4,000-ton Nagara type and six destroyers escorted four transports. An American account of this force, based on reports by the surviving crew of Captain Kelly’s plane, grossly exaggerated the number of ships. According to the Americans, our force comprised the battleship Haruna of 29,000 tons, six cruisers, ten destroyers, and fifteen to twenty transport.
We maintained cover over the transports for about twenty to twenty-five minutes, flying at 18,000 feet, when I noticed three large water rings near the ships. We were too high to see water pillars from bomb explosions, but the three rings were unmistakable. A second glance showed that none of the ships had been hit, although the American report of the attack claimed that the non-existent battleship had received one direct hit and two near misses, and was left smoking and draining oil into the water.
My fellow pilots and I were upset by the fact that the enemy had attacked despite our screening Zero fighters. We did not even see the bombers! A few moments later, after squirming around in my cockpit, I saw a lone B-17, about 16,000 feet above us, speeding southward. I called the attention of the other pilots to the single bomber, and we continued the search for the other planes we were certain had. assisted in the attack.(We had never heard of unescorted bombers in battle, especially a single bomber in an area known to be patrolled by dozens of enemy fighters. Unbelievable as it seemed, that B-17 had made a lone attack in the very teeth of all our planes. The pilot certainly did not lack courage.
We received the pursuit signal from our lead plane, and all but three fighters which remained behind as transport cover turned and raced after the fleeing bomber. The B-17 was surprisingly fast, and only under full throttle did we manage to get within attacking distance. Approximately fifty miles north of Clark Field we maneuvered to make our firing runs. Abruptly three Zeroes appeared—it seemed from out of thin air —and sliced across the B-17’s course. Evidently they were from the Kaohsiung Wing which had strafed Nichols Field earlier in the day.
We were still out of gun range when the three Kaohsiung fighters peeled off and made their firing passes from above on the big plane. The bomber continued serenely on, almost as if the Zeros were no more bothersome than gnats. The thin air at 22,000 feet had the slight advantage of forcing a reduction of the Zero’s performance.
Seven of our fighters joined up with the three Kaohsiung planes and swung into the attack. It was impossible for the ten Zeros to make a concerted attack against the bomber, for in the rarefied air we could easily overcontrol and collide with another plane. Instead, we swung out in a long file, and made our firing passes one after the other, each plane making its run alone. It was a time-consuming maneuver, and irritated me because of the long wait for each pass. By the time all ten Zeros had made their runs, we were flabbergasted. It appeared that not a single bullet or cannon shell had struck the bomber.
This was our first experience with the B-17, and the airplane’s unusual size caused us to misjudge our firing distance. In addition, the bomber’s extraordinary speed, for which we had made no allowance, threw our range finders off. All through the attack the Fortress kept up a steady stream of fire at us from its gun positions. Fortunately, the accuracy of the enemy gunners was no better than our own.
After my pass I noticed that we were over Clark Field, and it appeared certain that the B-17 pilot had called for help from American fighters. We had to destroy the plane quickly lest we be caught in a trap of our own making. But there seemed to be little purpose in continuing the long sweeping passes by diving down onto the bomber from behind. I decided to try a close-in attack directly from the rear. Greatly to my advantage, of course, was the fact that the early B-17 models lacked tail turrets, or I might never have been able to hold my course. Under full throttle I swung in behind the bomber and closed in for my firing run. Two other fighters, watching me, moved up and, wing to wing, we raced in for the kill.
The Fortress’ guns flashed brightly as the pilot fishtailed from side to side, trying to give the side gunners the opportunity to catch us in their sights. But despite the frantic defensive flying the enemy tracers missed our planes. I moved in ahead of the other two fighters and opened fire. Pieces of metal flew off in chunks from the bomber’s right wing, and then a thin white film sprayed back. It looked like jettisoned gasoline, but it might have been smoke. I kept up my fire against the damaged area, hoping to hit either the fuel tanks or oxygen system with my cannon shells. Abruptly the film turned into a geyser. The bomber’s guns ceased firing; the plane seemed to be afire within the fuselage. I was unable to continue the attack; my ammunition was exhausted.
I banked away to let the Zero behind me have his chance. The pilot hung grimly to the B-17’s tail, pouring in a stream of bullets and cannon shells. The damage was already done, however, and even as the other fighter closed in the bomber nosed down and was speeding toward the ground. Miraculously, its wings were on an even keel and the bomber’s pilot might have been trying to crash land on Clark Field. I dove after the crippled Fortress and, maintaining several hundred yards’ distance, took pictures with my Leica. I managed to get in three or four shots. At 7,000 feet three men bailed out. Their chutes opened and the next moment the B-17 disappeared into an overcast.
Later we heard reports that the Americans had damned our fighter pilots for machine-gunning the crewmen who drifted to earth beneath their parachutes. This was pure propaganda. Mine was the only Zero fighter near the bomber when they abandoned their airplane, and I had not a single bullet or cannon sheik left. The only thing I shot was photographs with the Leica.
No Japanese pilot actually saw the B-17 crash, so credit for the kill was denied at the time.
The bomber pilot’s courage in attempting his solo bombing run was the subject of much discussion that night in our billets. We had never heard of anything like that before, a single plane risking almost certain destruction from so many enemy fighters in order to press home its attack. The discrepancies of the surviving crew’s reports in no way detracted from the act of heroism. Later that afternoon, back in Formosa, we found the wings of two Zeros riddled with machine-gun bullets which had been fired by the bomber’s gunners.
Thirteen years after this battle, I met Colonel Frank Kurtz, USAF, pilot of the famed bomber “Swoose,” in Tokyo. Kurtz told me: “The day Colin was shot down, I was in the Clark Field tower. I saw his plane coming in, and you were right about his trying for a landing. Three open chutes came down through the overcast, and the cloud deck seemed to me to be at 2,500 feet. Then five more chutes opened. At least, it looked like five from where I was watching. Colin, of course, never got out.”
CHAPTER 9
That evening I found several letters from home, and a small package from Fujiko. She had sent me a cotton band to wrap about my stomach, with one thousand red stitches; this was Japan’s traditional talisman against enemy bullets.
Fujiko wrote, “Today we were told that our fatherland launched a great war against the United States and Great Britain. We can only pray for our ultimate victory and for your good fortune in battle.
“Hatsuyo-san and I have stood at a street corner several hours a day for the last several days, and have begged 998 women who passed to give us each a stitch for this band. So it has the individual stitches of one thousand women. We wish you will wear it on your body, and we pray that it may protect you from the bullets of the enemy guns...”
Actually, few Japanese airmen held faith in the charm. But I knew what it meant for Fujiko and my cousin to stand for long hours on the streets in the cold air of winter. Of cou
rse I would wear it, and I wrapped it about my midsection. Fujiko’s letter set me to thinking; that night, for the first time I thought of the enemy pilots I had shot down as other human, beings like myself, instead of unknown entities in their planes. It was a strange and depressing feeling, but, as with every other facet of war, it was kill or be killed.
We continued our routine sorties from Formosa to the Philippines for the next ten days, and then received transfer orders to Jolo Air Base in the Sulu Islands, midway between Mindanao and Borneo, 1,200 air miles from our Tainan airfield. On December 30 I took off at 9:00 A.M. with twenty-six other fighters for the 1,200-mile nonstop flight to the new station. Here new orders awaited us, and we flew 270 miles further south to Tarakan off the eastern coast of Borneo. Our flights were uneventful; we did not encounter any enemy planes.
The enemy struck back at our units for the first time in January. Late one night a lone B-17 caught the entire Tarakan force unawares. A string of bombs landed on the construction-crew billets, which formed a perfect target for the unseen bomber; the construction men stupidly disdained blackout procedures. The exploding bombs killed more than 100 men and injured many others, in addition to wrecking the group of buildings.
Not a Zero could take to the air, because the Tarakan airfield was one of the worst in all the East Indies. Even for daytime operations we found the slippery mud of the runways treacherous for take-off and landing. During our arrival two Zeros had overshot the sharp list of the runway and been demolished. The base commander flew into a rage, and ordered Naval Pilot 1/C Kuniyoshi Tanaka and myself to fly night patrol over the airfield. Tanaka was a former China ace with twelve kills, and in the Pacific eventually shot down another eight enemy planes, flying until he was wounded and disabled.
The night-flying assignment was both difficult and dangerous. In those days the Zero was unfit for night operations, and neither Tanaka nor I was even sure what we could do should enemy bombers attack. Fortunately for us—and the air base—we were not disturbed again.
On January 21 one of our convoys steamed out of Tarakan Harbor, bound for a landing operation at Balikpapan in lower Borneo. Headquarters ordered our group to supply air support, but at the best we could maintain only a light patrol of filters over the vulnerable transports.
Instead of the great numbers of fighters reputed to be at our disposal, in the early months of 1942 we had less than seventy Zeros available for the entire vast area of the East Indies. And since a good number of the fighter planes was always undergoing combat repairs and a thorough overhaul after 150 hours of flight, we averaged thirty fighter planes at any given time for combat action.
During mid-January, B-17 bombers began to arrive at the enemy’s Malang base in Java and initiated attacks against our forces in the Philippines and throughout the East Indies. These planes proved effective in harassing surface forces on the islands, but their inadequate numbers prevented them from interfering with our operations.
During the predawn darkness of January 24 we were afforded another demonstration of the Zero’s glaring inadequacies for night combat. An American surface force stormed the Japanese convoy at Balikpapan in a savage, well-executed attack, and blew several transports out of the water. We were unable, of course, to provide air cover of any sort before the American raiders were well out to sea again. And, even during daylight hours, we could mount an average patrol of only three planes over Balikpapan.
In the spring of 1942 the first B-17s with new tail turrets made their appearance in our theater. Up until this time our favorite method of attack against the big planes had been to dive from behind in a sweeping firing pass, raking the bombers from tail to nose as we flashed by. We soon discovered this had little effect on the well-constructed and heavily-armored B-17. It was this knowledge—and not primarily the addition of tail armament to the Fortresses—which brought about a sudden change of tactics. We adopted head-on passes, flying directly against the oncoming B-17s, pouring bullets and cannon shells into the forward areas of the enemy bombers. This proved temporarily effective, but it was soon negated by sudden evasive maneuvers by the B-17 pilots, which brought their heavy guns to bear on our incoming planes. The final attack procedure, and the most effective, was to fly high above the Fortresses, dive vertically, then snap over on our backs and continue to roll as we dove, maintaining a steady fire into the B-17s.
During the afternoon of January 24 Tanaka returned to Tarakan with his two wingmen after a patrol over Balikpapan. The three pilots were exhausted, although none was wounded. Tanaka reported that earlier in the day his flight of three fighters had encountered eight Fortresses, flying in two close formations.
“It was incredible, out there today,” Tanaka said. “We caught the Fortresses just right, and over and over I pressed home the attacks against the B-17s. At least twice I caught a bomber perfectly. I could see the bullets hitting and the cannon shells exploding in the airplanes. But they wouldn’t go down!”
Tanaka looked almost haggard. “These damned bombers are impossible,” he spat disgustedly, “when they work into their defensive formations.”
He went on to relate how his attack had, however, disrupted the B-17s’ bombing run, causing many of the bombs to fall harmlessly into the open sea. Only one ship was hit, a big oil tanker, and that was blazing fiercely when Tanaka left Balikpapan to return.
The following day I took the Balikpapan patrol, with NAP 2/C Sadao Uehara as my wingman. Our two Zeros were all that the air base could muster for the convoy shift; the other fighters were needed elsewhere. Since Tanaka had encountered the B-17s at 20,000 feet, we cruised slowly in a wide circle at 22,000 feet. Tanaka had been unable to climb quickly enough from 18,000 feet to intercept the bombers before they started to spill their missiles into the air.
Far below our planes, the tanker hit the day before still burned like a torch.
Late in the morning, several specks appeared in the sky, approaching from the general direction of Java. They came in fast, swelling in size until two formations of four planes each became clear. Fortresses, in two close flights, exactly as Tanaka had found them yesterday. The rear flight flew slightly above the lead group and, as we approached, the second group of planes moved closer to form a defensive box.
The B-17s passed about a half mile beneath me. I rolled, Uehara glued to my wing tip, and dove against the formations. I was still out of gun range, but flicked a burst as I passed them. I saw the bombs falling as I flashed by the planes. We rolled back and climbed steeply. I saw the water rings appearing on the surface. No hits; the convoy hadn’t been touched. Back above the B-17s, which now were turning in a wide 180-degree sweep, we searched for a possible second wave of planes. The sky was clear.
I moved into position again, a half mile above the rear of the formations. Now I’d see what Tanaka had been up against. I shoved the stick forward and rolled as I dove. The fighter picked up speed quickly; I kept the stick hard over, in a long rolling dive, firing with both guns and cannon. No results. Everywhere around me the Fortresses seemed to be filling the sky, and tracers arced through the air as we flashed through the formation. We slipped through without damage, and I climbed again for another dive.
Again. Dive, roll, concentrate on one bomber! This time I caught one! I saw the shells exploding, a series of red and black eruptions moving across the fuselage. Surely he would go down now! Chunks of metal—big chunks—exploded outward from the B-17 and flashed away in the slip stream. The waist and top guns were silent as the shells hammered home.
Nothing! No fire, no tell-tale sign of smoke trailing back...the B-17 continued on in formation.
We swung around and up, and rolled back in for the third run. The enemy formation continued on, seemingly impregnable, as if nothing had happened. The third time down I went after the bomber I had hit before, and again I caught him flush. Through the sight I watched the shells exploding, ripping metal from the wings and fuselage, ripping the inside of the fuselage apart. Then I was past the pl
ane, pulling out into a wide, sweeping turn, going for height.
The plane was still in formation! No fire, no smoke. Each time we dove against the B-17s their gunners opened up with heavy defensive fire which, fortunately, seemed to have been impaired by the tightness of the formation. So far I felt no damage to the Zero. I made two more passes, each time swinging down into a dive, rolling as I dropped, Uehara right with me, each of us snapping out bursts with the machine guns and cannon. And every time we saw the bullets and shells slamming into the bombers, seemingly without effect.
We had just completed the sixth firing run when the eight B-17s split into two flights. Four banked to the right and the other four wheeled away to the left. Uehara pointed excitedly to the flight bearing to the right; a thin black film trailed the left engine of the third B-17.
We had gotten through, after all. I turned to follow the four bombers and pushed the throttle all the way forward, closing in rapidly behind the damaged plane. He was hurt, all right, dropping behind the other three planes. As I moved in I saw tangled wreckage instead of the tail turret; the guns remained silent. At maximum speed I approached to fifty yards’ distance, and held the gun triggers down. Every last round poured from my guns and cannon into the cripple. Abruptly a cloud of black smoke burst from the bomber, and he nosed down steadily, to disappear into a solid cloud layer below.
Back at Tarakan I reported the details of the day’s flight to my superior, Lieutenant Shingo. The other pilots gathered around us to hear my description of the firing passes. In their opinion it was a miracle that I had come back at all, with the guns of eight Fortresses working me over all at once.
My ground crew found only three bullet holes near my fighter’s wing tip. I have never been a superstitious man, but I could not help running my hand over the talisman Fujiko had sent me.
Samurai! Page 7