The Aussies hadn’t even started hitting the beach yet; the first boots on shore weren’t scheduled for another 30 minutes, and schedules were notoriously flexible. Jock knew he wouldn’t miss much if they returned to Twenty Mile. Refueled and rearmed, they could be back over the invasion beaches in a little over an hour.
And they’d already done the Aussies a huge favor: the Japanese batteries were crippled. Hopefully, the positions overlooking their landing beaches were, too.
“All right,” Jock said, “let’s go back.”
Worth offered, “We could save some time if we went straight over the harbor. We could get away with it, I think, if we keep real low.”
“Fine. Do it.”
In just a few minutes, they were skimming the surface of Fairfax Harbor. The radio was alive with the frantic chatter of Spitball One-Two—the lead American fighter—and other planes in his squadron.
“Okay, boys, looks like the Jap fighters are running,” Spitball One-Two said, sounding triumphant. “Great job, all of you.”
Spitball Three-Four had a different perspective: “Are you sure we drove them off, boss? Or are they running out of gas, just like us. It’s a long way over those mountains back to Lae.”
“Who gives a shit?” Spitball One-Two replied. “Now let’s get the hell out of here, before we all start swimming home.”
“Well, that sounds like partial good news, anyway,” Worth said to Jock. “The Jap planes are clearing out.”
Those words had hardly left his lips when the water stretching before them erupted in two straight lines of closely spaced geysers. Worth looked up through the clear glazing of the cabin roof just as a Japanese fighter streaked right over them, buffeting the L4 fiercely in its wake turbulence.
From the back seat, Jock asked, “What the hell was that?”
“A Jap fighter…looks like a Zero. You didn’t see his rounds splash in front of us?”
“No, I didn’t. I thought they were leaving.”
“Maybe this guy didn’t get the word, sir.”
They watched as the Zero turned left and gained some altitude. The pilot was either heading for home—or circling back for another shot.
Suddenly, being over water didn’t seem like such a great idea. Viewed from above, an olive drab plane against a background of bright blue water made a tempting target—but not an easy one.
“He’ll have to slow down way too much to get a good bead on us,” Worth said, his eyes following the Zero. “That first shot missed us by a mile. Keep an eye on him, sir, and tell me if he comes around again.”
John Worth was confident he could stay out of the much-faster plane’s gun sight, but it would come at a price: sudden maneuvers would demand all the power the engine could muster. That would eat up fuel. They barely had enough to get back to Twenty Mile now.
A few more blasts of full throttle and they wouldn’t make it at all.
“He’s turning back towards us,” Jock said. He couldn’t remember a time he felt more vulnerable than being in this flying machine made of sticks and fabric.
He wished there was some way to shoot at the Zero with his Thompson. But even if the L4 had an aft gun port to shoot from, the submachine gun’s accuracy would render it useless: It’s tough enough to hit something twenty yards away when you’re standing still. Hard-won experience had taught Jock that lesson.
“Tell me when he’s done turning and coming straight at us, sir,” Worth said.
The Zero’s turn was wide and graceful. It took almost a full minute before the pilot leveled his wings and began to draw down on the L4 from her aft starboard quarter. The field of vision offered by the L4 was excellent in almost every direction, except directly below and behind. As long as the Japanese pilot wasn’t dead on their tail, Jock would be able to see him clearly.
“Okay,” Jock called out, “he’s coming. Four o’clock.”
The L4 jerked into a tight right turn. The Zero flashed harmlessly by, never getting off a shot.
That couldn’t have burned up more than a few ounces of extra fuel, Worth thought, as he eased the wide-open throttle back. But how long is this guy going to keep it up? A couple more passes like this and we’ll be lucky to make it back to the American lines, let alone Twenty Mile.
“He’s coming again,” Jock said. “Looks like it’ll still be from four o’clock.”
It took the Zero longer to get in position for this next pass. “Looks like he’s slowing down,” Jock said, “like he’s trying to match our speed.”
“Nah, he can’t,” Worth replied. “He’d have to throw out flaps, landing gear…”
“Uhh, he just did. I see the wheels coming down.”
“Shit,” Worth said. “If there were any of our fighters still around, this guy would be dead meat. But I can still go slower than him…and still maneuver, too. They don’t call us Slowbird for nothing.”
They were almost to the mouth of Fairfax Harbor now. The two planes flew in tandem—a slow-speed aerial ballet—with the Zero trying to match the L4’s skittish slips and skids. The Japanese pilot was getting closer—almost to kill range—but he couldn’t keep the nimble little plane centered in his sights. She was made to fly slow. His Zero wasn’t.
Squeezing off a few bursts that went wide of the mark, he tried once more to lock onto the L4’s tail.
But Worth flicked his plane into a sharp, 90-degree turn.
The Japanese pilot banked hard, trying to follow, but his plane would have none of it. On the edge of a stall and much too low, she buffeted, dropped a wing—and for a terrifying instant refused to respond to her pilot’s desperate inputs.
But the Zero’s powerful engine kept dragging her forward, fighting off a full stall. Her pilot regained control of his ship before she dove straight into the water.
He’d had enough of this game. Retracting his landing gear and then his flaps, he turned the Zero toward the Owen Stanleys and flew away. He had decided there was nothing honorable in being downed by an unarmed, slow-flying spotter plane.
“Our biggest worry now is fuel,” Worth said, as the float gauge flirted with the empty mark. “We need to fly straight for home. It’s our only chance.”
Flying straight home would involve passing directly over the town of Port Moresby—still full of Japanese gunners.
But John Worth was right: it was their only chance. He turned the plane straight for the harbor’s closest shore—and Port Moresby.
They expected ground fire from the town, and they weren’t disappointed. Most of it came at them horizontally, from the hills on the town’s landward side. The crests of those hills were higher in the air than the L4. They couldn’t tell if they had been hit or not. The L4 just kept flying.
Their low altitude gave Jock an almost horizontal view of Port Moresby, a perspective he’d never had before. If he had a street map, he could’ve followed their progress across the town alley by alley.
He would have never seen it if they’d been higher: the long, wire antennas, high above the ground, stretched horizontally from tall poles; the vans parked between the antennas, beneath a canopy of trees.
All this was invisible if viewed from above or far away. But plainly obvious when viewed obliquely and up close.
Jock knew what it was; he’d seen the equipment before on Cape York. It was a mobile, high-powered radio transmitter installation.
He knew what it meant: they’d found the Japanese headquarters at Port Moresby.
Chapter Forty-Two
Day 15
The L4’s engine quit when they were still half a mile from Twenty Mile Airfield. “No problem,” John Worth called to Jock, sounding like he truly meant it. “They use these things to train glider pilots, you know. Just shut the engine off and let them glide in…kinda like what we’re doing right now.”
I guess that’s supposed to make me feel better, Jock told himself. If only it did…
But they made it to the runway no problem. One of the tech sergeants helping pus
h the L4 off the runway had two pieces of news: first, a squadron of P-39s was due in from Australia this afternoon, to be based at Twenty Mile. Second, there was a big storm expected to arrive about the same time.
“We could sure use the fighter support,” Worth said, “but they’d better hurry up. After the rain turns this runway to muddy slop, those nose gears on the P-39s will dig right in. They’ll either snap off or the damned things will flip right over on their backs.”
The tech sergeant added, “When the clouds roll in and the visibility gets bad, sir, they won’t find this damned place, anyway.” He gave the L4 a once-over and said, “I’m surprised she ain’t all shot to hell again, considering where she’s been. I don’t see a hole in her.”
Jock and Worth exchanged a surprised look. Neither man could believe their plane hadn’t suffered even one hit.
Jock’s relief didn’t last long. A telephone call to Division HQ pushed him quickly to the point of rage. Taking out the Japanese headquarters—now that he had actually found it—didn’t seem to be much of a priority at Division.
“Look, Major,” the Division G3 said, “the Air Force can only give us an approximate time they’ll be able to mount a sortie against what you think is the Japanese headquarters.”
Jock struggled to keep a civil tone. “Colonel, I don’t think it’s their headquarters. I know it is. I’ve seen a radio setup like that before. It’s used for long-range communications with Rabaul, even Tokyo. Only major headquarters have it.”
“Well, we gave them your target box,” the colonel replied, sounding very dismissive. “Now it’s the Air Force’s problem. Are you sure we can’t hit it with artillery, Major?”
Jock really wanted to say You fucking idiot. Didn’t you even look at your own map? Instead, he said, “Quite sure, sir. It’s twelve miles from our nearest one-five-five battery. And the last time I checked, those guns still have a range of only nine miles. Besides, there are civilians in Port Moresby. Lots of them. If that target isn’t marked—and marked accurately—all those planes will do is kill them instead of the Japs.”
Jock imagined the colonel’s scowl as he countered, “So what, Major? This is war. If some of those local porch monkeys get in the way, that’s just the way it goes.” He paused before adding, “What about the Aussie artillery? They’ll be much closer, won’t they?”
Jock looked at his watch and asked, “Colonel, you do realize the first Aussie troops are not scheduled to even hit the beach for another three minutes? That is, of course, if the landings are actually on schedule. Lord knows how long it’ll take to get their artillery up and running.”
“Look, Major, I can’t help you any more than that.”
Like you helped at all…
“I’ll give you their approximate time window over the target,” the colonel said. “Take it from there.” He passed on the time information and rang off the line.
Unable to control his frustration for another second, Jock kicked over a table in the operations tent.
“Whoa! Easy, sir,” John Worth said, rushing over to Jock. “What’s wrong?”
“Sometimes,” Jock replied, “it’s harder to fight our own damned command than the Japanese. How long until she’s ready to fly again?”
“About another ten minutes. They’re gassing her up now. And there are four more Willie Pete rounds ready to go on board.”
“Good,” Jock replied. “You up for flying over Port Moresby again, John?”
“If that’s what it takes, then yes, sir, I am.”
The first wave of the Australian Seventh Division came ashore at Boera against scant opposition. Several battalions—over a thousand men—were already off the beach and working their way to the hills a few miles beyond. The boats of the second wave were approaching the shore.
There was one big snag: two passes through those hills formed the exit corridors from the beach, and Japanese heavy machine guns blocked them. The machine guns’ interlocking fires formed an invisible but deadly fence that had already killed or wounded over 100 men. Now pinned down—and with a tenth of the first wave already out of action—the Aussie troops stopped cold at the passes were coming under fire from heavy mortars. They had two choices: attempt to scale the steep hills, which would take hours before any sizeable force could get behind the Japanese machine gun nests, or dig in.
They chose to dig in.
“WHERE’S MY BLOODY ARTILLERY?” General Blamey bellowed. He had decided to come ashore with the second wave—a surprising but courageous choice, considering the uncertainty of the situation. But not one field gun was among the thousands of diggers now crowding the beach. Hunkered down with his stalled troops, Blamey desperately needed some firepower of his own. Without it, many more would be dead within an hour, and his landing would be hurled back into the sea.
“We’re calling in fire from the destroyers now, General,” a fire support officer said.
“NO!” Blamey replied. “My men are too close. Those Navy guns are just as likely to hit us as the Japs. We need close support. Where is that bloody Yank Air Force?”
“They’re up on frequency now, General…and about five minutes out.”
“Cancel the naval gunfire,” Blamey replied, “and pray we’re not all killed in the next five minutes.”
The general glanced at the panting, sweating private furiously spinning the cranks of the radio’s hand-crank generator. “Take it easy, lad,” Blamey said, “Don’t kill yourself. There are enough wankers trying to do that already.”
John Worth eased the throttle back as the L4 leveled off at 800 feet. They were retracing their steps back up the coastline, heading straight for the center of Port Moresby—and the Japanese HQ. The clouds just above them were thickening. Already, the peak of Astrolabe—sitting 3,000 feet above sea level—was hidden among them.
“That’s not good,” Jock said from the L4’s back seat. “My boys on Astrolabe won’t be able to see much of anything.”
Worth had more immediate concerns. “It isn’t very good for us, either, sir,” he replied. “Flying around all this high ground in bad visibility is a great way to get ourselves killed. And if it starts raining really hard, we’ll be lucky to see half a mile.”
Jock tried to think of something reassuring to say to the young lieutenant, but nothing was coming to mind. Worth was right: the weather could give them and their little plane far more trouble than the Japanese.
“Even if we mark the Jap HQ,” Worth said, “the Fifth Air Force guys might not be able to find it in this soup…or even want to try.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, John.”
They were beginning to see the hazy outline of Port Moresby dead ahead, jutting into the mouth of Fairfax Harbor. Worth gently nosed the L4 toward the water’s surface; they’d have to get low again to see the Japanese radio station.
“Come right about two degrees,” Jock said. “That should put us right over it.”
“What are you using for a landmark, sir?”
“That pair of long, two-story buildings…aim right between them.”
Barely a minute passed before they were skimming over the rooftops. “That street just off our right nose,” Jock said, “…those radio trucks should be…right…” His voice trailed off. His next words came quickly, a disappointed “Oh, shit.”
There was nothing there. The spot the vans had occupied less than two hours ago was now vacant.
Worth asked, “You sure that’s the right place, sir?”
“Yeah, I’m damned sure.”
“They couldn’t have gotten far,” Worth said. “Want me to get a little higher, so we can get a better look around? If they’re moving, we should be able to spot them pretty easily.”
“No, let’s go up to Boera first. See if the Aussies can use our help.”
The fighters of the American Fifth Air Force were over the beaches at Boera in less than the promised five minutes. Despite the steadily dropping ceiling, they had little trouble picking o
ut the passes in which the Australians were pinned down. Once the Aussies marked their lines with smoke grenades, the Yank pilots strafed the Japanese machine gun nests just beyond to devastating effect. Despite their close proximity to the strafing runs, no Australian diggers fell victim to friendly fire.
The beaches of Boera cleared as the Aussies flooded inland through the now-open passes, allowing their subsequent waves to land. Most importantly, their artillery and Bren gun carriers began to stream ashore, finally unloaded from the bowels of haphazardly loaded transport ships. Only an hour and a half had passed since the first wave set foot on dry land, but the Aussies had advanced beyond the coastal hills and were moving east, encountering only token opposition. Ahead lay Port Moresby and the rear of the Japanese forces facing the American 32nd Division.
As General Blamey surveyed the bombed-out Japanese artillery batteries—batteries that, as far as he could tell, had never fired a shot against his troops—a single American spotter plane droned past overhead, teasing the lowering cloud deck. Working the radio set in the general’s ute—an American jeep in Aussie paint—his aide said, “Those Yanks overhead are asking if they can be of any help, sir.”
Blamey seemed amazed by the question. “Of course they bloody can,” he replied. “Ask them where the bloody Japanese are, for God’s sake.”
Looking at the wrecked Japanese guns all around them, Blamey knew the Yanks had already provided a great deal of help: only a deadly accurate bombing raid could have done this sort of devastation.
The aide had the answer in short order. “They say it’s wide open all the way to Port Moresby, but the town is only lightly defended and perhaps being evacuated. The bulk of the Japanese are still farther east, beyond the town.”
Bloody wonderful, Blamey thought. Five miles of unopposed ground in front of us. Plenty of time and space to get ourselves properly organized.
Chapter Forty-Three
Operation Long Jump (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 2) Page 28