by Dan Hampton
Four
The Crucible
One hour past midnight on June 22, 1941, over 3,000 combat aircraft accompanied by seventeen panzer divisions punched huge gaps in the 1,800-mile Soviet border, and from the Black Sea to the Baltic nearly four million German soldiers cut through the shattered Red Army. On that June morning victory seemed a sure thing, more so by the end of the second day as 3,922 Russian aircraft had been destroyed against 78 losses for the Luftwaffe. This air superiority and the hard-charging panzers took the Germans 350 miles into the Soviet Union by the end of the first week. At the end of July, five Soviet armies and fifty complete divisions had been destroyed, with at least 600,000 men captured. If Hitler had stopped there, consolidated his gains, and negotiated a separate peace that included the oil- and mineral-rich Caucasus region, the war might well have been won. It was this ill-fated decision to continue east that eventually cost Hitler the war and destroyed his vaunted Thousand-Year Reich.
But he did not stop. The annihilation of Bolshevism, extermination of Jews, and the enslavement of the Slavs were ideological dreams dear to Hitler and he believed, as he was wont to do, that his military was unbeatable. Germany wanted the immense areas of living space and food available in the Ukraine and desperately needed the vast resources and oil fields of Central Asia. Stabbing southward into this area would also threaten Britain’s Abadan oil fields in Iran, the world’s largest source of oil. Without it, Britain’s war machine would grind to a halt and peace in the west, under Germany’s terms, very possible. This was all within Hitler’s reach and seemed quite feasible during those heady months of 1941, which was one reason why various jet programs were allowed to languish. Why was an advanced aircraft necessary when Germany was winning everywhere and now immeasurably aided, so Hitler believed, by Japan’s devastating December 7, 1941, attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor?
Back in America the war seemed far away to George Welch as he continued on to Purdue University to study mechanical engineering. Joining the collegial fraternity life he thoroughly enjoyed himself, but never lost sight of his goal to fly fighters. Once he had the requisite two years of college behind him, George applied for the Aviation Cadet program and was accepted into the Army Air Force just as Germany invaded Poland. A training slot opened up after the fall semester of his junior year, and he happily left Purdue in December 1939 for various ramshackle training bases and the uncertain life of a student pilot. Surviving the four-phase training program at bases in Texas and California, Welch emerged in January 1941 with about 200 hours of flying, the gold bars of a U.S. Army Air Corps second lieutenant, and the prized silver wings of a pilot.
By February he was in Hawaii, on Oahu’s Wheeler Field with the 47th Pursuit Squadron of the 15th Pursuit Group. There truly is no life like that of a bachelor lieutenant fighter pilot in a frontline squadron, and George made the most of the dances, the social scene, and the ladies. One story is told of a huge party at the Royal Hawaiian, a magnificent pink hotel on Waikiki Beach, to which he had no invitation. Deciding that his status as a fighter pilot merited an invite, he dressed in flight gear and swam offshore far enough to float past the beachside dance. Popping his parachute, George let the breeze tow him in toward the beach then calmly walked out of the surf into the party. The guests assumed he’d bailed out on a training flight, though he never admitted to that, and gave the young pilot all the drinks and female company he could manage.
During the first week in December, Welch and his squadron mate Ken Taylor were manning the dispersal strip at Haleiwa on the northern edge of Waialua Bay. Sharing tents with the bugs and sand was not how the pair intended to spend their weekend so on Friday, December 5, 1941, both pilots came down to Wheeler for a string of weekend parties. By Sunday they were hungover from days on the beach and nights at the officers’ club. Poker, good drinks, and women had kept them up till the small hours of December 7, and nothing was going to get them out of bed.
Nothing except a Japanese sneak attack just after dawn.
By 0748 waves of Japanese Aichi D3A dive-bombers with Nakijima 97 torpedo planes were roaring over the island and sweeping into Pearl Harbor. The battleships were a primary target as Japan, and the United States to a large degree, were still unconvinced that aircraft carriers would rule the seas. The attackers concentrated on a sliver of shallow water between the 1010 Dock and Ford Island called Battleship Row. Airfields at Kaneohe Naval Air Station, Ford Island, and Wheeler were also high priorities to keep the surprised American fighter pilots from getting airborne. Blinking against the morning sun and their own headaches as they stumbled out onto the bachelor officers’ quarter’s huge patio, George Welch and Ken Taylor would have seen the “meatballs” painted on the attacking planes and sobered instantly. Not bothering with Wheeler, which was being bombed and strafed, the two pilots jumped into Taylor’s new Buick convertible, peeled out, and headed to Haleiwa.
The P-40s there were full of fuel and .30-caliber ammo, and the ground crews already had the props turning. Half-dressed from the night before, Welch slipped into the cockpit and ran his eyes over the gauges. Beneath the big black and white turn indicator he read full fuel in the fuselage. Waving away the crew chief, George unlocked the tail wheel and with his right hand checked the cowl flaps. Men darted away beneath the wings pulling the chunky wheel chocks behind them and with his left hand Welch set the mixture to RICH, then slid the throttle smoothly forward.
By 0815 the two were airborne, gear and flaps up, guns armed, and Welch led the pair up over the little beach and away from Haleiwa, climbing slightly with wide eyes out. Training and instinct took over and George got his lap belt fastened, parachute straps connected, and adjusted the propeller pitch, all the while forcing himself to methodically scan the sky. Arcing around the west coast the pair of Army pilots caught their first sight of the enemy; Welch turned the reflector gunsight full up against the early morning glare, wincing as sunlight caught the mirror above the U-shaped crash pad. Shoving the mixture and throttle forward, the P-40s came roaring into the fight, ambushing twelve dive-bombers attacking the Marine Air Base at Ewa Field. Americans called the Aichi a “Val,” and it was a slow, clumsy aircraft with fixed landing gear—dead meat against a fighter—and they each shot down a pair before landing at Wheeler to refuel and rearm. Astoundingly, the two pilots were berated by a staff officer for flying in nonregulation clothing; both men were wearing tuxedo pants under their khaki flying shirts. They were also told they had no authorization to fly and were ordered to stay on the ground.
Behaving as any real fighter pilot would do when faced with absurdity (and a battle raging overhead), Welch ignored the idiot and got airborne again as fast as possible. Though his Warhawk was shot up, George shot down another Val and a Mitsubishi “Zero” fighter just west of Barbers Point. Taylor also claimed another pair, which were eventually confirmed from Japanese records. For their gallantry that day both men were nominated for the Medal of Honor and received the Distinguished Service Cross, America’s second-highest decoration for valor.* The entry for Welch’s logbook that day only reads, “Combat patrol. The real McCoy.”
Due to his actions at Pearl Harbor, George was sent back to the States for a war bond drive during the summer of 1942, and during this time the Japanese expanded their western perimeter from Manchuria into French Indochina (Vietnam) and Burma, south into the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, the Philippines, and all the way through the Solomon Islands to New Guinea. It was here, in early May 1942, that Japanese momentum was finally slowed at the Battle of the Coral Sea. Japan was planning an invasion of Port Moresby, which would cut Allied supply lines and leave Australia open for invasion, but were met head-on by a small fleet built around two U.S. aircraft carriers: the Lexington and Yorktown.
Lieutenant Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa, a pilot aboard the Yorktown and future test pilot, shot down three Zeros with his dive-bomber on the last day of combat. Basically evenly matched, the actual battle was a draw favoring the Japanese,
as the Americans were forced to scuttle the carrier Lexington. However, this was the first time in history that two fleets fought without the opposing surface ships gaining sight of each other, and naval warfare was changed forever. For those in any doubt, the Coral Sea irrevocably proved the strategic value and tactical necessity of carrier aviation. In the end, the proposed Japanese invasion was called off, Australia was safe, and after a decisive U.S. victory at the Battle of Midway in June, New Guinea remained relatively secure as a base for future operations.
August 1942 saw the 1st Marine Division come ashore at Guadalcanal and, after six months of bitter, vicious fighting they would annihilate the Japanese, turning the tide of the ground war as Midway had done it in the air. It was also in August that George Welch returned to combat. Finally escaping the publicity tours, speeches, and throngs of adoring women, he managed to get transferred back to a combat unit, the 36th Fighter Squadron of the 8th Fighter Group based at Milne Bay, New Guinea. Overjoyed to be back in the war, he was not at all happy about fighting the Japanese with the Bell Airacobra. Underpowered and awkward in many ways, the P-39D was so bad that the British Royal Air Force, despite their desperate need for fighters, had turned it down; nevertheless, the Russians loved the plane and effectively used its big 37 mm cannon to kill German tanks.*
By late October, the Japanese navy was back in force in the southern Solomons to support a ground offensive that, it was hoped, would finally dislodge the tenacious U.S. Marines dug in on Guadalcanal. The Americans countered with another small fleet of two carriers under the command of Admiral William “Bull” Halsey. Swede Vejtasa, now in a fighter cockpit where he belonged, was part of Fighting Squadron (VF) 10 flying F4F Wildcats off the USS Enterprise. During a single mission on October 26, Swede shot down seven Japanese aircraft attacking his carrier and became the first American ace-in-a-day since the Great War.*
Throughout the fall of 1942, George flew and fought in defense of Port Moresby, and on December 7, 1942, shot down two Zeros and a Val dive-bomber on the anniversary of his first kill. According to his squadron mates, Welch often did not claim kills and was rather indifferent about keeping score. After all, he knew the truth, and being an inveterate prankster he enjoyed knowing what others did not. This included, if the stories are accurate, ditching a few P-39s in Milne Bay to get rid of them. The 36th Fighter Squadron pilots had been told to expect Lockheed P-38 Lightnings only when there were no more Airacobras, so Welch and his buddies tried to speed the transition along.
This happened in May, finally, and Captain Welch transferred to the 80th Fighter Squadron on Port Moresby’s Kila Airfield. During the summer of 1943 he shot down two more Zeros, and on a single August mission destroyed three Ki-61 fighters. The Hien, or “Tony” as the Allied called it, looked like a cross between an Allison-engined P-51 and Me 109. Sleek and powerfully armed, the Tony was a hard fight in the hands of an experienced pilot. In early September Welch gunned down a Ki-46 twin-engined reconnaissance plane and three more Zeros, bringing his total to sixteen confirmed kills—but he very likely had a half dozen more.
At that point life caught up with George. He actually air-aborted a mission and returned to New Guinea due to a high fever, discovering that he had contracted malaria. Evacuated to the 118th General Hospital in Sydney, he recovered rapidly enough to troll for girls on nearby Palm Beach where he met a beautiful, suntanned Australian named Janet Williams. She, in turn, introduced him to an American paratrooper, a general named Joe Swing, commander of the 11th Airborne Division, and on his way into New Guinea. Despite “Jumpin Joe’s” best efforts, Jan was utterly taken with the young fighter and on October 23, 1943, she married Major George Welch. After nearly two years of fighting and surviving 348 combat missions, he was preparing to return home just as another young American pilot was boarding the liner Queen Elizabeth in New York on his way to England: Charles Elwood “Chuck” Yeager and the 357th Fighter Group were going to war.
But the Axis momentum did not, could not, last.
ByJanuary 1943 the United States was well into the war and confident enough, even then, to host a conference in Casablanca, Morocco, where Germany’s future unconditional surrender was already being planned. January also saw the capitulation of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, with a formal surrender occurring on February 2; it was an immense tactical defeat for Hitler and a stunning victory, both militarily and psychologically, for Stalin and the Allies.* The situation was dire enough that the Luftwaffe halted all training flights so precious fuel could be diverted to the Eastern Front. This had lasting implications as the flow of replacement pilots slowed, and those who did arrive lacked the superb training that characterized the prewar Luftwaffe.
Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, had taken place in late 1942, and by New Year’s Day the Japanese were about to lose Guadalcanal. The Axis had lost its momentum and, though in no way defeated, it was now known they could be beaten. Initially a shoestring offensive, and one that the United States was not really prepared to fight, Torch was nonetheless a strategic necessity. General (later Field Marshal) Erwin Rommel had been cleverly fighting in North Africa since late 1941, and by July 1942 his Afrika Korps had captured Mersa Metruh in Egypt. This put him within striking distance of Cairo, and if the city fell Rommel would certainly seize the Suez Canal, crippling Britain’s lifeline to India.
An Allied offensive in North Africa would accomplish several immediate objectives. First, it would force Rommel to turn back from Egypt and fight the threat to his rear. This would keep the canal temporarily safe and forestall any moves by Egyptian nationalists who sought an alliance with Hitler. Allied control of the Mediterranean, or even a heavy presence there, would disrupt Rommel’s main supply lines, cutting him off and effectively neutralizing the Afrika Korps. It would also get Lieutenant Ken Chilstrom, young fighter pilot and future demon chaser, into the war.
Allied landings in Morocco and Algeria would also sever the former French colonies from their collaborationist Vichy government, hopefully provoking a reaction by the French people and giving Hitler another significant strategic problem. Likewise, conquering Tunisia would be a severe blow to fascist Italy, sending a clear signal to those seeking Mussolini’s downfall while providing a future base of operations against Sicily. An assault against the belly of the Third Reich would force Hitler to divert men and scarce resources to counter the threat. Such a riposte would also ease the pressure on the Eastern Front and give the hard-pressed Soviet Army some breathing room.
These were sound strategic concerns, so despite the U.S. military’s reluctance, Torch was planned and put into action. Convoy UGF-1 departed Hampton Roads in the Chesapeake Bay on October 26 and was joined by a screen of warships, including the battleships Texas and Massachusetts, from Task Force 34 out of Maine’s Casco Bay.* The aircraft carriers Ranger, Chenango, Suwanee, Santee, and Sangamon sailed from Bermuda and rendezvoused with the fleet as it headed for the African coast. The first of three prongs struck North Africa in Morocco before dawn on November 8, 1942, and the main objective for Major General George Patton’s 33,000-man Western Force was the port of Casablanca.
It was believed, and planned for, that the French defenders would turn against the Germans and join the Allies, so there was no preliminary air or sea bombardment of the enemy coastal positions. This was a costly miscalculation as one surrender to the Germans in 1940 was enough for most of the French forces. Additionally, they had received intelligence of the Allied invasion fleets passing through Gibraltar headed for Algeria and were fully alerted. When the landings commenced, French shore batteries opened fire and their surface ships sortied, including several cruisers and five submarines. Vichy aircraft, among them Dewoitine D.520 and Curtiss Hawk Model 75 fighters, also got airborne in an attempt to repel the Allied invasion.
The 39,000-man Center Force sailed from the United Kingdom and came ashore in Algeria near Oran. In addition to the U.S. 1st Division, Major General Lloyd Fredendall had the 1st
Armored Division, a battalion of paratroopers from the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and the 1st Ranger Battalion. The mixed Anglo-American Eastern Force under U.S. Major General Charles Ryder hit the beaches on either side of Algiers. Resistance was light, and all the coastal batteries had been knocked out prior to the landings. Many of the French, including several commanders, immediately surrendered and welcomed the Allies.
In the end, Admiral François Darlan, commander of the Vichy navy, was captured in Algiers and, through a controversial deal with General Dwight Eisenhower, surrendered North Africa to the Allies. Though this outraged the Free French forces, who regarded Darlan as a willing Nazi collaborator (which he was), there were substantial strategic benefits. The Germans, who had never trusted the French, were compelled to initiate Case Anton, an operation they had foreseen in 1940, to occupy all of France. This meant that over twenty infantry divisions and a half-dozen armored divisions, desperately needed in Russia or North Africa, were not available. Less than two weeks after Darlan surrendered, the 7th Panzer Division rumbled into Toulon, the main port of the French fleet. Rather than be captured and refusing to steam to British ports, at least seventy-seven French ships were scuttled, including three battleships, seven cruisers, and twelve submarines.
Farther south the North African Atlantic ports of Casablanca, Safi, and Lyautey were now in American hands, as were all the surrounding airfields. U.S. losses were 174 killed, plus light damage to several ships, including the battleship Massachusetts, from shore batteries. Less than six aircraft had been lost, while Navy F4F Wildcats shot down over a dozen French fighters and transports. The Vichy battleship Jean Bart went down in Casablanca harbor and the French navy additionally lost a cruiser, four destroyers, and five submarines.