Fortress Rabaul (51 page)

During the Pacific war, .50-caliber cartridges were typically belted in repeating sequences, of which two out of every five projectiles were armor-piercing. Highly effective against lightly armored warships and unarmored merchantmen, each bullet was 1.5 inches long, measured 0.5 inch in diameter, and weighed 700 grains, equivalent to about 1.6 ounces. At a casual glance, the dimensions of a single bullet might seem rather insignificant. How much damage could something the size of a pinky finger do?

What really mattered were the ballistic properties. The M2 discharged an armor-piercing round with a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet per second—nearly three times the speed of sound—generating phenomenal kinetic energy. On impact, each bullet exerted a force of approximately fourteen thousand pounds per square inch. Naturally, because of friction and gravity, the bullet’s velocity diminished as it moved through the air, but the B-25s were also traveling at around 240 miles per hour, or more than 130 yards per second. As the attacking planes drew closer to the Japanese ships, the relative kinetic energy of the bullets actually increased.

The outcome was total carnage. Most of the pilots held the trigger down for about four to seven seconds, spraying upwards of a thousand rounds at the enemy ships. Many of the heavy slugs penetrated the hulls and upper works, pulverizing equipment and tearing into crewmembers. The bullets alone often possessed the destructive power to sink a sizeable vessel, but the coup de grace was still to come. Just before hauling back on the control column to zoom over the target vessel, the pilots released one or two 500-pound bombs. Larner’s squadron had not practiced skip-bombing
per se
, but instead perfected the split-second timing necessary for direct impact.

Each of the B-25s made multiple attack runs, crisscrossing the convoy to bomb and strafe ship after ship. The machine guns overheated, and several crewmen blistered their hands from clearing and recharging them. Larner almost made good on his boast that his pilots wouldn’t miss. Of thirty-seven 500-pounders dropped at point-blank range, seventeen were recorded as direct hits.

The results seem to justify the claims. In a span of fifteen minutes, all seven of the remaining transports and three out of eight destroyers were left sinking or dead in the water. The first warship hit was probably
Shirayuki
, flagship of Rear Admiral Kimura. Larner’s strafing run killed many of the men on the bridge and wounded most of the others, including Kimura. Of the two bombs dropped, one was a near miss; the other struck with tremendous impact near the aft main battery, rolling the big destroyer on its side.
Shirayuki
righted herself, but shortly thereafter an ammunition magazine blew up, tearing off her stern. In a bold maneuver, the destroyer
Shikinami
stopped alongside and successfully transferred Kimura and some of the other wounded just before the crippled flagship sank.

Lieutenant General Adachi also had to be rescued. He was aboard the 2,490-ton destroyer
Tokitsukaze
, which lost power and was abandoned after taking four direct hits, including one that made a shambles of the engine room. In similar fashion, the destroyer
Arashio
was hit by three bombs and lost steering. The naval supply ship
Nojima
attempted to assist, but things quickly went from bad to worse as the uncontrolled
Arashio
rammed into it, causing mortal damage to
Nojima
. With seventy-two crewmen dead, including the captain, the survivors abandoned ship and were rescued by yet another destroyer,
Yukikaze
.

The nightmare for the Japanese was far from over. Six B-25s of the 405th Bomb Squadron attacked with 500-pounders at altitudes of two hundred feet or less, scoring four more hits. Next came a dozen modified A-20s, which strafed and bombed at mast height, reportedly scoring another eleven direct hits. Finally, about twenty minutes after the mayhem started, four B-17s of the 63rd Bomb Squadron approached the remnants of the convoy. The vessels that were still afloat had become scattered over an area estimated to be fifteen miles in length and five miles across.

FLYING IN FROM the north, fifteen Zeros also approached the convoy. Detached from the carrier
Zuiho
, whose fighter group had transferred to Kavieng the previous day, the Model 22s (code-named Zeke) were scheduled to reach the convoy at 0830, Japan Standard Time. The flight leader, Lt. Masao Sato, wanted to arrive on station thirty minutes early and therefore advanced the group’s takeoff time accordingly.

Approaching in their dark-green fighters at eighteen thousand feet, the Zero pilots sighted the convoy shortly before the four B-17s commenced their attack. Warrant Officer Tsutomu Iwai, a veteran of the China war, watched with dread as the distant ships were suddenly enveloped by water spouts from exploding bombs. Going to full throttle, he reached the convoy within minutes, but the worst had already been done. Several ships were sinking, others burned fiercely, and columns of black smoke rose to fifteen thousand feet. The carnage on the surface, he later wrote, “was truly a scene from hell.”

Spotting the four B-17s, the
Zuiho
pilots attacked vigorously. Ten or more dived in from the left on the Fortress flown by Lt. Bill Thompson, whose crew gave better than they got—or so the gunners claimed. The tail gunner, ball turret gunner, and left waist gunner all supposedly shot
down Zeros, though it is possible that all three were aiming at the same plane. A pair of B-17s flown by Lt. Francis P. Denault
(Lulu Belle)
and Lt. Woodrow W. Moore
(Double Trouble)
also came under attack by an estimated ten fighters. Denault’s navigator, Roger Vargas, claimed a Zero with his .50-caliber nose gun, and one of the waist gunners also claimed a fighter. Thus far the heavily armed bombers had seemed impervious, but something different transpired in
Double Trouble
.

According to American sources, a Japanese fighter came in under the wing of Moore’s bomber and fired a burst upward into the fuselage, setting the B-17 on fire. Accounts differ as to whether the cockpit area or radio compartment was hit first, but the fire was evidently intense and fast-spreading, as flames were seen “spouting from the windows and tail.”
Double Trouble
maintained level flight for a few moments, its bomb bay doors partially open and the fire clearly visible through a window in the radio compartment, but then gradually began descending. The bombs tumbled out, followed by seven crewmembers whose parachutes opened normally, though one man was seen to slip out of his harness and fall. Apparently three flyers remained aboard
Double Trouble
, including Moore, who perhaps intended to ditch the burning aircraft. However, it was still a few hundred feet above the water when the rear empennage suddenly crumpled and fell away. No longer under control,
Double Trouble
smashed into the sea.

In a memoir written after the war, Iwai claimed that one of his wingmen, Flight CPO Masanao Maki, deliberately rammed the B-17. “Both planes broke in two,” he wrote, “and the four pieces fell, jumbled together.”

His account is at odds with the recollections of the B-17 crewmen, making it difficult to believe that a Zero sneaked in and collided with Moore’s plane without anyone else seeing it. Conversely, the Flying Fortresses were famous for their ability to absorb tremendous damage but keep on flying. This makes it equally hard to believe that enemy gunfire alone caused the tail of Moore’s B-17 to break away. From that standpoint, the scenario of a mid-air collision gains credibility.

Wherever the truth lies, Iwai’s recollection was highly sentimental: “I was struck by a deep emotion and closed my eyes in prayer as Maki fell away,” he wrote. “Maki was honored with a posthumous double promotion of rank and his feat announced to all forces.”

To virtually all American and Australian airmen, the notion of suicidal “body crashing” was outrageous, a fanatical act that few could comprehend. But an even more shocking event transpired immediately after the downing of
Double Trouble
. The members of Moore’s crew who had bailed out were still drifting in their parachutes when three Zeros swooped down and machine-gunned them in full view of the other B-17 crews. The enemy fighters, described as clipped-wing A6M3s, were almost certainly from Air Group 204 at Rabaul or Air Group 253 at Kavieng.

As soon as the bomber crews returned to Port Moresby, word of the atrocity began to spread. On flight lines, in mess halls, in operations shacks and tent cities, the story of the men who were machine-gunned in their parachutes was told again and again. Men who had never heard of
Double Trouble
or met any of the crew were suddenly gripped by a seething hatred for the Japanese. Most were already familiar with the horror stories coming out of the jungles around Buna and Kokoda, where undeniable evidence of war crimes and even cannibalism by Japanese soldiers was being discovered.

Emotions boiled over. The airmen wanted retribution. War correspondent Quentin Reynolds, an associate editor at
Colliers
magazine, narrated the reactions of Sgt. Gordon R. Manuel, a bombardier in the 43rd Bomb Group: “We got back to the base and everybody knew what had happened to the six boys from the 63rd Squadron. We ate dinner and nobody said much. We were all burning. We couldn’t wait until the next day when we might have another crack at those rats.”

Some aircrews did not wait. Although the weather was deteriorating, Ed Scott and Jimmy Dieffenderfer took off at 1325 to hit the convoy again. Dieffenderfer turned back because of engine trouble, but Scott pressed on and joined five B-17s from the 65th Bomb Squadron. Soon two more B-17s slid into position on Scott’s wing. Australian A-20s and American B-25s also marshaled for the attack, with P-38s providing top cover.

When the Allies located the convoy, they found five transports wallowing in the water. All were burning, little more than smoking hulks. Around them, the sea was speckled with Japanese sailors and soldiers who had gone overboard. Thousands struggled in the water, some clinging to rafts or debris, others floating in lifebelts or small boats.

A few destroyers were also in the vicinity.
Tokitsukaze
, her buckled hull surrounded by an enormous oil slick, had been abandoned. Nearby,
Asashio
moved at a crawl through the debris fields to pick up survivors. Well to the north, four destroyers departed the killing zone at high speed, having pulled hundreds of men from the water. They would rendezvous the next day with two destroyers en route from Rabaul, transfer the survivors, and then return to the convoy.

Asashio
, with five hundred survivors already crowding every inch of her decks, halted rescue efforts and also headed north when the Allied aircraft approached. Hundreds of Japanese, left behind in the water, watched in disbelief as the warship sped off without them. But they were the lucky ones.

Lacking most if not all of her gun crews,
Asashio
was defenseless against the swarm of attacking bombers. Ed Scott released two 1,000-pounders from seven thousand feet, and his wingmen dropped four apiece. One or two of the heavy bombs slammed into the destroyer, and several others narrowly missed, scything the hull with deadly shrapnel. Almost simultaneously,
Asashio
was attacked by several skip-bombing B-25s. Shuddering under a storm of bombs and bullets, the lone destroyer was transformed into a blackened, listing hulk. Somehow she stayed afloat, at least temporarily, but very few of her crew or the hundreds of Japanese who had already been rescued once from the sea survived the onslaught.

Despite the mayhem visited upon
Asashio
, the Allied airmen were far from satisfied. Seeking additional retribution for the machine-gunning of Lieutenant Moore’s crew earlier that morning, Scott and his fellow B-17 pilots turned their heavily armed planes against the thousands of Japanese who had abandoned various sinking or sunken ships. Descending to a mere fifty feet, the seven Fortresses maneuvered slowly above the clusters of drifting survivors. Almost every crewmember who could point his weapon downward—belly gunners, tail gunners, waist gunners, even bombardiers with their nose guns—sprayed the lifeboats, rafts, and knots of Japanese clinging to debris.

For thousands of once-proud soldiers and sailors of the Rising Sun, the turn of events was incomprehensible. A few hours earlier the convoy had seemed mighty, but now several ships were underwater and most of the remainder drifted lifelessly, smoke pouring from their hulls and superstructures. Although the sea was warm, it was both alien and immense, a frightening, shark-infested atmosphere for the Japanese who found themselves struggling to stay afloat. And if the sudden reversal of
fortune was not shocking enough, gigantic enemy bombers now roared just above their heads, spitting ribbons of fire in all directions. The apocalypse had come.

While the B-17s strafed men in the water, the A-20s and B-25s continued their low-level attacks. Some bombs inevitably overshot their intended targets and exploded among clusters of survivors, obliterating everyone within the blast radius. The sea literally turned red in places, attracting sharks to the blood and gore.

The number of Japanese killed in the water that afternoon is anyone’s guess, but the toll undoubtedly climbed into the many hundreds as the Allied crews went on a rampage. One man in Scott’s B-17 burned out two machine guns in the process of firing 1,100 rounds. Captain Jim Harcrow and his crew conducted three missions. “
We’d come back and refuel
, bomb up, and go back out again,” he recalled. “That was the bad thing about the Bismarck Sea … when our guys parachuted, the Japanese shot ’em right in their chutes. So after that we did the same thing. If they were hanging onto a piece of debris, we strafed them in the water.”

The slaughter continued into the next day. On the morning of March 4, a trio of B-17s came upon six enemy landing barges attempting to rescue survivors off Lae and “unmercifully” wiped them out. The following day, a B-25 crew fired 1,200 machine-gun rounds into a cluster of life rafts holding about one hundred Japanese. Time and again, whenever an Allied warplane came across a drifting lifeboat or suspicious-looking debris, the scene was repeated.