Fortress Rabaul (25 page)

The Japanese sent natives in an outrigger canoe to pick up Lutz, who soon joined Reed on the beach. The two captives were then marched to what Reed described as “a Japanese rest camp,” probably near Vunapope. The information is supported in the diary of an unnamed Kempeitai officer: “An enemy plane was shot down near Higashisaki. No. 9 Company captured a signal sergeant and engineer corporal who had parachuted from their plane.” (The Japanese word
Higashisaki
, meaning “East Point,” identified the tip of the Gazelle Peninsula. The 9th Infantry Company was an element of Colonel Kuwada’s 3rd Infantry Battalion, encamped near Vunapope.)

Within an hour, a Buick sedan adorned with Japanese flags arrived at the camp. A Kempeitai officer jumped out and made the Americans stand at attention. “
He had a riding crop
and proceeded to beat the piss out of us,” remembered Reed. “When his arm got tired he’d switch hands and keep beating on us, the whole time yelling and screaming. Of course, we couldn’t understand a word he was saying.”

Lutz and Reed later discovered why the officer was so agitated. Thirteen miles to the north, the
Komaki Maru
burned uncontrollably. Its cargo of ammunition began to explode, adding to the wholesale destruction. At least eleven of the ship’s crew perished along with eleven members of the Tainan Air Group who were still aboard, and some thirty-one were wounded. Army casualties, although not recorded, were heavy according to Captain Hutchinson-Smith.

No one could get near the ship to fight the conflagration, which became even more intense when oil from the ship’s ruptured fuel tanks ignited. Fanned by the wind, the burning slick spread across the surface of the harbor, forcing other ships to move to safer anchorages.

Long into the night, the fires and explosions continued unabated. A Japanese observer noted, “The noise caused by the explosion of the
projectiles and the rise of flames sky-high in the darkness made a gruesome scene.” The most spectacular explosion occurred shortly after 1900 hours, when the bombs stored deep in the hull erupted with a blast “that seemed to crumble heaven and earth.” Flaming debris rained down onto storage sheds along the wharf, setting those buildings afire. “All at once,” wrote the unidentified witness, “the situation was critical, because there were considerable provisions and ammunition within, and all around the vicinity there were mountains of [stockpiled] gasoline and oil. The ammunition exploded repeatedly, fuel fires flared up, and the area was a sea of flames.”

By some miracle not a single POW was hurt. However, several made the mistake of displaying their glee in front of the Japanese. “
They must all be very happy
after seeing today’s bombings,” wrote one observer. “Among them were some who clapped their hands. All the members of my unit who heard this agreed that [we should] kill them off one after another.”

Although no POWs were executed that night, an officer and an enlisted man were severely punished for laughing while the
Komaki Maru
exploded. First, the Japanese lined up all of the Lark Force officers on the parade ground, then forced them to watch as a dozen guards wielding stout wooden sticks pummeled the two offenders for thirty minutes.

WITHIN DAYS of the sinking, Vice Admiral Inoue began preparations for “MO” Operation, the dual invasions of Tulagi and Port Moresby. On April 21, with the Tainan Air Group and Rabaul’s land-attack units at full combat readiness, the aerial campaign against Port Moresby resumed. The Japanese attacked more ferociously than ever, generally with at least one full
chutai
of Type 1 bombers escorted by fifteen or more Zeros. Despite a valiant effort by 75 Squadron, the onslaught exacted a steady toll on the defenders.

A midday fight over Port Moresby on April 24 was typical of the David-versus-Goliath encounters. A dozen Zeros, one of them flown by Saburo Sakai, another by Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, strafed Seven Mile airdrome. “
We swooped down
on six B-26 bombers, fifteen P-40s, and one P-39, all of which seemed to be evacuating the field,” recalled Sakai. “We tallied two bombers and six P-40s as definite kills, with a probable for the P-39. After the one-sided air battle we continued up to Moresby [harbor], strafing and burning one anchored PBY.”

To their great frustration, neither Sakai nor Nishizawa scored any victories on this occasion. And, contrary to Sakai’s account, the Aussies
put up only six Kittyhawks. Three were shot down or forced down, with one pilot killed in action.

Les Jackson and twenty-year-old Sgt. Robert W. Crawford were at five thousand feet when they saw at least three Zeros attacking a Marauder. They dived to intervene, and Jackson claimed a victory, but two of the Zeros performed rapid wingovers and got behind Crawford in the blink of an eye. The armor plating behind the seat undoubtedly saved Crawford’s life, but he suffered minor wounds nonetheless—and his fighter was sieved with holes. When the rudder cables were shot away, he had no choice but to ditch offshore.

Pilot Officer Oswald J. Channon was leading the other four Kittyhawks at twenty-five thousand feet when one of the pilots spotted Zeros almost three miles below. Plunging downward from the cold upper atmosphere into warm, humid air, the Kittyhawks’ canopies fogged up. The pilots zoomed back up to clear their windscreens, but Channon evidently became the victim of an opportunistic Zero. His P-40 was found later that day near a village, Channon’s body still inside the wreckage.

Sergeant Michael S. “Mick” Butler was shot down when the oil cooler in his P-40 was punctured during a brief but intense dogfight. Butler made a forced landing that severely damaged the aircraft, but he lived to fight again. Meanwhile, the Zeros conducted several strafing attacks that destroyed a Catalina and two parked Marauders. Overall it was a costly day for Port Moresby’s defenders.

AS THE MONTH of April wore on, the aerial punches and counterpunches intensified. Major General Brett assumed command of the Allied air forces on April 20, and during the next ten days American bombers conducted at least eight raids against Rabaul and Lae. The weary crews of the 40th Recon Squadron, the only heavy bombardment unit to hit New Britain thus far, finally received some help. The men and equipment of the 7th Bomb Group were absorbed into the 19th Bomb Group, whose squadrons were scattered all over northern Queensland. After a few weeks of training and refurbishing, the 30th Bomb Squadron at Cloncurry was ready to commence combat missions, with additional squadrons soon to follow.

The newcomers learned the hard way that New Guinea itself could be as hazardous as the enemy. On the afternoon of April 24, four B-17Es of the 30th Bomb Squadron landed at Seven Mile and refueled for their
first Rabaul mission, scheduled for early the next morning. Taxiing commenced at approximately 0300, but the lead Fortress tilted into a muddy crater and became firmly stuck. The remaining B-17s took off at the prescribed time and began to join up while climbing in the darkness toward Rabaul, but the last of the three never rendezvoused. It had crashed into the upper slopes of Mt. Obree, instantly killing all eight crewmen. Back at Seven Mile, the mired Fortress was also destroyed despite the crew’s best efforts to pull it free. Shortly after 0800, fifteen Zeros of the Tainan Air Group strafed the airdrome, and the Fortress went up in flames.

Two days later, an attack by nine Type 1 bombers and eleven Zeros caused mayhem in the dispersal area at Seven Mile, destroying three A-24s and a B-26. The following day, Flg. Off. Montague D. Ellerton of 75 Squadron took off for Townsville in a Kittyhawk that needed depot-level maintenance. A veteran of the fighting in North Africa, Ellerton was approaching the Australian mainland when he spotted a P-39 that had made an emergency landing on a wide stretch of beach. Thinking he could assist the American pilot, Ellerton attempted a conventional landing on the beach, but the Kittyhawk’s wheels dug into the soft sand and flipped the fighter onto its back. Trapped upside down in the cockpit, the twenty-three-year-old Ellerton drowned in the rising tide.

By April 28, 75 Squadron was down to just five serviceable P-40s. John Jackson stood the alert duty that morning along with Barry Cox, Pete Masters, John Brereton, and Sgt. William D. Cowe. Two of the pilots, Cox and Masters, had just been released from the field hospital following severe bouts of dysentery. Still feeling ill, they flew anyway.

Shortly after 1100 hours, Leigh Vial radioed a warning that a Japanese raid was inbound from Lae. The pilots scrambled aloft, initially climbing southward to gain altitude before turning north toward the Japanese. Jackson spotted them first: eight Type 1 bombers at twenty thousand feet or above, plus eleven Zeros perched even higher. He swung the Kittyhawks eastward to gain more altitude and then turned to approach the bombers from below. Climbing steeply, the Aussies pushed the fighters to the very edge of their performance envelope.

Predictably, the Allison V-12 engines lost horsepower above sixteen thousand feet. The Kittyhawks’ airspeed bled off rapidly, and Masters was barely making headway by the time he maneuvered into position to shoot
at one of the bombers above him. As soon as he opened fire, the recoil caused his fighter to stall. Tumbling earthward in an inverted spin, he could hear Jackson “shouting epithets” over the radio.

Jackson, despite all of his experience, had also gotten himself into a stall. Against a superior number of agile Zeros, it was a terrible position to be in. For a few agonizing moments, his Kittyhawk hung almost motionless in the air, completely vulnerable to the Zeros and
rikko
gunners. Brereton and Cox, trying to stay on Jackson’s wing, evidently stalled as well. Bullets suddenly pierced Brereton’s fighter, wounding him. He got out of danger, but Jackson and Cox were not so fortunate.

No one knows exactly what happened. Both Kittyhawks were seen to fall uncontrollably. One came down in a screaming vertical dive, striking a hill behind Mount Lawes with such force that its engine was buried six feet deep; the other also dove straight down at tremendous speed but smashed into a swamp. The wreckage of the latter was not located for months.

Les Jackson, hospitalized with an intestinal virus, got up from his cot upon learning of the combat and went with the squadron doctor to the mountain crash site. Initially there was some uncertainty about whose remains had been collected by AIF troops at the scene, but Les didn’t have to look. Upon learning that the troops had found a foot in a size ten boot, he knew it was John’s.

THE NEXT DAY was Emperor Hirohito’s forty-first birthday. All across Japan, and on every military post, airfield, and ship throughout the empire, the event was treated as a national holiday. At Lae, the men of the Tainan Air Group gathered for a special breakfast. “All sailors with any cooking experience joined the kitchen staff,” remembered Saburo Sakai, “and prepared the best possible breakfast from the limited supplies available.”

The flyers had just finished their meal when a strident bugle call warned of an incoming raid. High overhead, three B-17s released several bombs that exploded with unusually good accuracy among the planes parked at the airdrome. “Five Zeros lay in flaming wreckage,” Sakai later wrote. “Four others were seriously damaged, riddled throughout with jagged bomb splinters.” (The 25th Air Flotilla war diary confirms Sakai’s statement, listing five Zeros as “burned out” on April 29.)

A few Zeros escaped damage, and two of Sakai’s squadron mates took off to chase after the high-flying B-17s. Hours later FPO 1st Class Toshio
Ota returned, claiming that he had downed a B-17. But the 93rd Bomb Squadron, which conducted the mission, lost no Fortresses that day.

Infuriated by the interruption of their holiday, the Tainan pilots organized a counterattack. Jun-ichi Sasai led eight Zeros aloft to “return the Emperor’s birthday greetings.” Heading west toward Port Moresby, the fighters crested the craggy tops of the Owen Stanleys and then immediately nosed over, hugging the downhill slopes to avoid detection.

The attack worked to perfection. Swooping down on Seven Mile airdrome, the Zeros took the Australians by surprise. Eight snarling fighters—one skimming along just twelve feet above the ground—raced the length of the runway with their weapons spitting thousands of bullets. Men scattered in all directions as Sasai and his pilots doubled back for multiple runs. When they returned to Lae, they jubilantly reported burning a parked B-17, damaging three others, and also damaging a fighter. (The Allies acknowledged damage to a twin-engine Hudson and one Kittyhawk.)

Later that morning, a grieving Les Jackson took over 75 Squadron as the interim commanding officer. But the squadron was completely used up, and there were no serviceable planes for him to lead when a formation of Type 1 bombers attacked the airdrome that afternoon. The Australians could only watch in dismay as the enemy formation dropped a total of 108 daisy-cutters on the airfield. Afterward, four Zeros strafed the runway again.

Fortunately for the beleaguered outpost, Port Moresby lacked fighter defense for only one more day. On the morning of April 30, a large contingent of P-39D Airacobras approached the airdrome from the south. Hundreds of war-weary men came out to watch and cheer as twenty-six slender green fighters touched down one by one on the hard-packed runway. The flight was led by Boyd D. “Buzz” Wagner, a pipe-smoking Pennsylvanian who, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, was already a lieutenant colonel. His accelerated promotion was the reward for becoming the Army’s first ace of the war, accomplished the previous December in the Philippines. Now assigned to the headquarters staff, he was sent to Port Moresby as the senior American fighter director. Knowing that 75 Squadron was used up, he was anxious to bring as many American fighters to New Guinea as he could get. The pilots, members of the 35th and 36th Pursuit Squadrons, 8th Pursuit Group, had barely gotten acclimated to Australia before they found themselves at the front lines. Now, as they
climbed from the unique car-type doors of their Airacobras, they were completely unprepared for the blast of hot, humid air that washed over them. It was a rude New Guinea welcome.