f-stop is climbing gently to 20,000 feet. John can feel the cold creeping in. The cockpit heater system is a poor design, woefully inadequate for the temperatures encountered at high altitude. Pilots of single-engine craft had it a little better, as the big engine right in front of them helped to warm the cockpit a bit, but the F-5’s twin engines, mounted on the wings, afford no such benefit. Pilots who had flown this type aircraft in the European theater suffered badly from the cold while escorting the high-flying heavy bombers. During the harsh European winters, they could never stay warm, no matter how low they flew. Here, in the Pacific theater, with its temperate climate, you could stay warm at lower altitudes without any bulky clothing; pilots often fly low-to-medium-level missions in their shirtsleeves.
From 20,000 feet, John figures he can photograph the railroads of western Kyushu in two passes, the first to the north and second to the south, then continue directly back to Kadena. There are two rail routes running basically north-south in this area, with several connectors between the two running east-west. The photos from the two passes should make a mosaic covering the entire area, provided no clouds obscure the ground and the cameras do not malfunction. He has enough oxygen and fuel to stay at 20,000 feet for the entire four-hour mission, if he so chooses.
This should be a milk run, provided no Japs feel like coming up to play.
Although he is concerned about the growing clouds sweeping into his path far ahead from the west, the camera run begins routinely. It is almost like a sightseeing tour. John has a magnificent view of southern Kyushu and all that is happening in the air above it. The US Navy is particularly active today; Avenger and Helldiver bombers are combing the coastline, searching for Japanese naval vessels foolish enough to be there and the small suicide boats that might be concealed practically anywhere. Above the bombers, flights of protecting fighters orbit; if they don’t expend their ordnance on intercepting Japanese, the escorts will drop down to the deck to strafe targets of opportunity after the bombers are safely on their way back to the carriers. The radio chatter indicates a few Jap fighters have tried to prey on the bombers but are driven off, with one probably shot down.
John wonders where the ones that had been driven off are now and at what airfield they are based. In his flights over this big island, he has seen large numbers of enemy aircraft on the ground; he knows those airfields have been attacked repeatedly, but they never seem to get them all. How many planes have actually been destroyed?
He hopes the answer to that question is enough.
Halfway through the first camera run, the clouds between f-stop and the ground become sufficient to obscure the photography; John descends to 12,000 feet, just below the broken, obscuring deck. He doubts he’ll have enough film in the vertical cameras at this altitude to cover the entire mission, so he does a quick recalculation of his planned route to include using the oblique cameras. The photo ships working the eastern and southern areas are reporting satisfactory visibility; they are able to remain at high altitude and maintain a higher speed. In fact, two of the planes are already on their homeward legs. The planes working northern Kyushu and Shimonoseki, however, are now reporting unsatisfactory conditions and are returning home, too, one of them reporting engine problems and calling for fighter escort. They also report some moderate turbulence. John thinks it strange they even mention it, as if they need another excuse to go home. Pilots and crew are usually unfazed by turbulence until the rare times it becomes severe and throws the airplane out of control, usually in close proximity to thunderstorms. Those who realize too late they have blundered into a thunderstorm might find their planes disintegrating around them, the wildly gyrating machines unable to withstand the extreme aerodynamic forces imposed on their structures. All too often, those airman pay for this misfortune with their lives.
John hopes he can fly no lower than this altitude all the way to Fukuoka, his turnaround point. Higher altitudes now would be nothing but cloud layers, some of which look like they could be foreshadowing storms that must be avoided. The cockpit, still cold-soaked from the high-altitude run, refuses to warm up.
Over Fukuoka, John begins the gradual left turn that will bring him to his southerly return leg. With the better downward view the turn affords, he sees the Jap fighters struggling to his altitude: five, he counts.
Damned Japs never seem to attack unless they have a big numerical advantage. It shouldn’t be too hard to get away, though…they’re climbing and slow…I’ve got a big speed advantage…should be able to outrun them, no sweat…nobody behind me…yet…may not even foul up my camera run.
A moment later, John becomes aware of the Jap fighters’ real target: the flight of 16 B-24’s high above, heading north, which had left Okinawa from another airfield before the recon squadron. The F-5’s had passed above the lumbering bombers long before either flight had reached Kyushu. He can only catch glimpses of them through the clouds above, but he hears their excited radio chatter: the bombers are already under attack. The fighters John sees are heading to join in that attack. Several bombers are spreading out and dropping into the clouds to try and hide, a very risky tactic during formation flying. The pilots of the other bombers are shouting--no, screaming--into their radios, urging those seeking shelter in the clouds to come back while trying to maintain what is left of their defensive formation. Their escorts, six P-51 fighters, are dodging back and forth above the bombers, trying to find the attacking Japanese who are using the same clouds to conceal their approach from below.
The five climbing Japanese fighters are passing below f-stop’s nose right to left. John is certain they see him; sure enough, one rolls left, seemingly to come around on f-stop’s tail. The others continue their climb to the east, to the American bombers. John has little reason to be concerned over his would-be pursuer: the Jap could never catch up. John continues his photo run, flying straight and level.
The radio chatter, filled with tense, sometimes panicked voices, suddenly becomes a loud shriek--the sound of a man who knows he is about to die. Then, silence.
The next voice is that of a B-24 pilot: “Oh my God! He flew right into them… These bastards are Kamikaze!”
The airwaves are again filled with the high-pitched voices of men in peril. They call out locations of the suicide fighters by the hour hand of the clock and warnings of their intent to perform sudden, violent evasive maneuvers. They will try anything to avoid the intentional, mid-air collision that spells death for all on board.
The first B-24 to be knocked down by a Kamikaze was attacked from directly ahead; two enemy planes had suddenly popped up from the clouds below and turned hard into the bomber. The first missed wide to the left, just clearing the bomber’s wing as it hurtled past. The second flew directly into the bomber’s nose section. There had been no time for the pilots to react and evade. The bombardier, navigator, both pilots, and the flight engineer manning the top turret behind the cockpit were all killed on impact. The remaining five crewmen, unable to bail out of the bomber in its spiraling death plunge, now ride it to the ground. John sees the doomed plane in the distance to his left, tumbling out of the clouds.
A second B-24 is struck, this time by a Kamikaze that had slashes through its left wing between the two engines, causing the spar to fail and the wing to buckle, the tip flying upward as the wing hinges at the impact point, then separates from the aircraft. The doomed bomber begins its death spin to the ground, the fuselage pivoting about on its remaining wing, like some broken pinwheel. No parachutes from this plane, either.
A final calamity befalls this flight of bombers as two of the B-24’s seeking shelter in the clouds collide, their propellers chewing up each other’s wings, which are now meshed. Structural failure and separation of both wings follows quickly and those planes, too, spin to the ground, taking all their crew with them.
Forty American and two Japanese airmen dead… Four B-24’s and two Japanese suicide planes destroyed…all in a matter of moments.
The gunne
rs on the remaining 12 bombers shoot down three Kamikaze; the escorting P-51’s claim four more. These unskilled Japanese in deficient aircraft are easy fodder for the more experienced American fighter pilots, who have finally succeeded in locating their foes. The remaining three suicide planes make good their escape, perhaps to seek honor someplace else, perhaps to return to their airfield in disgrace.
As the radio chatter dies away, John checks his own tail once again. He is astonished by what he finds.
Damn! He’s still there! At my altitude and gaining on me…What the hell?
John scans his instruments: the engines are running perfectly and his airspeed is right where he wants it to be. How is this piece of junk, an aged “Zero”--probably a Kamikaze--gaining on him? Pretty soon, he’d be in gun range--if this Jap even has guns--and evasive action will be necessary.
If he could look into the cockpit of his adversary, John would see the reason for this seemingly impossible occurrence: this Kamikaze, a novice pilot, barely trained in this or any other aircraft, had simple pushed the throttle of his stripped-down aircraft to the limit, oblivious to the maximum operating limits for manifold pressure and rpm. The importance of these limits had never been stressed in his perfunctory flight training. What would be the point? You planned to destroy the aircraft anyway.
You could get away with a momentary operating parameter exceedance; everybody did it in combat due to either distraction or self-preservation. The excessive parameters the suicide pilot is forcing on his engine have persisted far past any momentary event, however, and are starting to take their toll on the poorly maintained machine. The Zero has begun to vibrate as the engine approaches self-destruction. When John looks behind again, the Zero is closing in, apparently trying to sever f-stop’s horizontal stabilizer with its propeller, a move sure to send the F-5 plummeting to earth.
OK, I guess he’s got no guns…time to get away from this clown before he rams me…
In the brief moment it takes John to analyze and select a course of action, before he can actually execute an escape maneuver, the suicide plane’s overtaxed engine seizes. The resulting gyroscopic force jerks the Zero into a violent roll, causing the pilot’s head to strike the canopy frame with a force that breaks his neck. Had he ever learned the wisdom of securely snugging his seat belt and shoulder harness, his injury might not have proved fatal. The Zero, without engine and pilot, begins a fluttery, tumbling plunge to the ground.
John gets a quick glimpse of the Kamikaze plane, its propeller motionless and engine cowling mangled, as it drops back and down, away from his own aircraft. Now it made sense how the Zero was able catch up; its pilot had succeeded in destroying his plane and committing suicide, but he had failed to take John with him.
Too bad there’s not a camera facing aft… I might have got a “kill”…
Suddenly, f-stop is alone in the sky again. The radio chatter fades. The photo mission continues.
As he approaches the southern end of Kyushu, just north of the head of Kagoshima Bay, the left oblique camera records a railroad track construction detail at work, with a small locomotive and several work cars, on the inland side of the heights overlooking Ariake Bay.
A short time later, John and his airplane leave Kyushu behind and head home to Kadena. The only aircraft he has to dodge now are friendly ones, heading north to unleash yet more destruction on the Japanese home islands.
For once, John gets back on the ground before Marge is awake.
“Take a look at this, gentlemen,” Colonel Watkins says as he bends over one of the photographs from John Worth’s last mission. “It looks like we’ve finally got some evidence that the Japs are building up fortifications in the Ariake Bay area.”
He was referring to the railroad track-laying detail. The photo revealed they were constructing a spur into a cave network. “No doubt,” Watkins says, “they’ll be moving all kinds of heavy weapons and ammunition into those caves as soon as that track is finished. There is no road network there to transport heavy equipment. They’re trying to do it by rail.”
This information is immediately forwarded to MacArthur’s G-2 at Manila. Intelligence sections throughout the theater have been scratching their heads for weeks looking for fresh, promising targets; they had already hit everything at least once. They finally have something new to bomb. The target is offered to the 20th Air Force, who gladly accepts it.
A flight of eight B-29’s arrives the following afternoon. From their high altitude, the visibility for visual bombing is poor due to thick cloud cover. The big four-engined bombers are unopposed by Japanese fighters or anti-aircraft fire. The aiming point is to be the intersection of the main rail line and the new spur under construction, but it cannot be identified visually with the Norden bombsight. The radar bombsight of the lead aircraft provides an indistinct image, as there are few topographical features to distinguish the target. The lead bombardier takes his best shot and releases his bomb load, commanding the other aircraft to do the same.
His best shot is not good enough, however. The bombs miss their mark and over 80,000 pounds of high explosives devastate the forested hills to the west of the aiming point. No one on the ground is killed or injured. In fact, the area is deserted at the time of the raid. The tracks, the primary target of the bombers, are only slightly damaged.
On the return flight to Tinian, in the Marianas, one of the B-29’s experiences electrical system problems and attempts to divert to Iwo Jima. That island--halfway between Japan and the Marianas--was seized by US Marines from the Japanese at great cost to serve as an emergency landing field for stricken bombers like this one. The resulting loss of radio and navigation equipment, however, coupled with an anxious, incorrect computation by the navigator that goes unchecked, causes an inability to find that island. The bomber ditches into the sea after running out of fuel and sinks soon after. Not knowing exactly where the off-course bomber has gone down, it takes the rescue seaplanes four days to stumble upon the crew floating in their rafts. Several of the crew have been injured in the ditching, but there are no fatalities.
A second B-29 is not so lucky. Its number 2 engine, inboard on the left wing, loses oil pressure on the return leg between Iwo Jima and Tinian and has to be shut down. On approach to Tinian, the number 1--the other engine on that same wing--catches fire. It, too, is shut down and the fire extinguished, but handling this lumbering, asymmetrically powered beast in the strong, gusty winds, both engines on the left wing now dead, quickly proves more than the pilots can handle. It stalls and spins into the sea a mile short of the runway, its fuselage breaking open on impact and sinking quickly. There are no survivors.
The photo recon squadron tries but cannot record the results of the raid for two days, when the skies have finally cleared. By then, the minor damage to the tracks, which would not have been visible in the photos anyway, has been repaired.
The bombing mission is classified as “ineffective.” They would have to try again. In the weeks that follow, the rail junction and the surrounding area are struck regularly by fighters and bombers of the 5th Air Force, rarely causing much damage and nothing that cannot be quickly repaired.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Gentlemen, today we work in conjunction with General LeMay’s 20th Air Force,” Colonel Harris says, beginning the briefing. “We will get the bomb assessment pictures of their raid on the Nakajima aircraft factory at Kokura. Captain Worth, your section will do the first photo run immediately after the raid.”
This didn’t come as much of a surprise; the squadron had been discussing the collaboration with the B-29 heavy bombers of the 20th Air Force all week. The only B-29’s the recon pilots had seen so far were those that had diverted to Okinawa, limping in with mechanical problems or too low on fuel to get home to the Marianas. John could not wait to see one in action, up close. He had devoured all the technical data he could find on the new bomber and was in awe of its technical complexities and capabilities.
One hell of a ma
chine, he thought.
John’s section for this mission would boil down to him and Second Lieutenant Buddy Knox, a likeable rookie from North Carolina. The third pilot in the section was sick with dysentery. The fourth pilot slot in the section was unfilled, awaiting a replacement. John tried to get a fill-in from one of the other sections, but they were all short, too. Illnesses and mechanical problems were cited as well as reluctance to fly someone else’s airplane; you just didn’t know its quirks like your own machine, and that could cost your life. Buddy was a quick learner who seemed to accept his newcomer status with easy grace. John envied him that; he remembered the intense pressure he felt as a rookie not to screw up, always feeling he was seen as something of a liability. Sometimes he still felt it, to Marge’s infuriation.
She had once yelled at him, “Baby, don’t you see that you’re a goddamn legend around here? They think you’re Superman with all the flying you do...a little nuts for still being here, perhaps, but still Superman!”
He wanted to believe, but he just didn’t.
John and Buddy Knox are approaching the rendezvous point with the B-29’s over the Bungo Strait, just south of Shikoku, at 30,000 feet. The jetstream that often pushed aircraft all over the sky at this altitude is mild today, hence the plan for a daytime, high-altitude mission using precision bombing with high explosives. LeMay’s aircrews welcomed the change from the nighttime, low-altitude “area” incendiary missions they were assigned all too often, where the stench of burned human flesh rising in the torrid air permeated their aircraft and made them nauseous. The darkness provided no hiding place as their planes were silhouetted against the raging fires below, easy pickings for Jap fighters lurking above and anti-aircraft gunners below.
East Wind Returns Page 13