Fortress Rabaul (55 page)

The Japanese called this
jibaku
, which literally means to self-explode. The amazing thing is that so many aviators, for all their intelligence and technological expertise, were brainwashed by the bushido mentality. Petty Officer Igarashi was a perfect example. Upon learning that one of
his friends in Air Group 705 was shot down on April 14, he evoked the concept of
jibaku
as if it were the most natural thing in the world: “In the afternoon I went to the airfield again and heard about the great progress of the battle.
More than ten vessels were sunk
, airfields were on fire, etc. Unfortunately, Yokozawa self-exploded with Lieutenant Matuoka.”

After losing numerous dive-bombers and land-based medium bombers during the one-week operation, the conference attendees admitted that their planes needed “bullet protection,” as they quaintly put it. Heretofore, the aviation community had operated under the premise that the best defense was a good offense. In applying the samurai ethic to twentieth-century war machines, fliers and engineers alike valued speed, agility, and lightness above all other qualities. If a plane and its pilot were appropriately aggressive, there was little need for heavy armor plating or protected fuel tanks. As an extension of that mindset, most fighter pilots removed the radios from their planes, and many refused to wear a parachute because they considered the weight excessive.

One positive outcome of the conference, at least from the Japanese point of view, was to affirm their belief that the Zero was still the most dominant fighter in the war. The Japanese did, however, express concern about the new American fighter they were encountering in the Solomons, the Vought F4U Corsair. In spite of themselves, they were impressed by the fighter’s superior horizontal speed, rate of climb, armament, and ruggedness. “
While their numbers were small
, the F4Us caused no trouble,” wrote Akira Yoshimura. “But as their numbers rapidly increased, it … became impossible to ignore this new fighter. The [attendees] had to admit that at last an American fighter able to match the Zero had appeared.”

Another outcome of the conference was a situation report from Lieutenant General Adachi, who had returned from a recent inspection trip to New Guinea. Despite the string of losses there, he informed Yamamoto and the assembled leaders that if he could have another battalion, he would be able to hold his current positions. It was an illusion. Adachi was probably telling the navy what he thought they wanted to hear, but it worked. Both Yamamoto and Ugaki were pleased to receive the favorable news, which made them more eager than ever to visit the forward bases in the Solomons and inspire the men serving there.

Rear Admiral Johima, who had flown to Rabaul to attend the conference, warned Yamamoto against making his planned excursion to
Bougainville. The flight was too dangerous, Johima said, but Yamamoto would not back down. “I have to go,” he replied. “I’ve let them know, and they’ll have got things ready for me. I’ll leave tomorrow morning and be back by dusk. Why don’t we have dinner together?”

A STICKLER for punctuality, Isoroku Yamamoto arose early on the morning of April 18. The flight to the Solomons was scheduled to depart from Lakunai airdrome at 0600. An artistic individual, fond of writing haiku poems and creating exquisite examples of calligraphy, Yamamoto might have allowed himself a few minutes to indulge in the beauty of the tropical morning. The skies were clear, bringing the promise of a pleasant day, and a gentle sea breeze brought the scent of frangipani and bougainvillea wafting through the louvered shutters of the cottage.

For the first time since leaving Japan, Yamamoto donned a new uniform of green khaki instead of dress whites. He also wore a pair of comfortable airmen’s boots, and completed his ensemble by attaching a traditional sword to his uniform belt. The weapon he selected had been a gift from his older brother, who was now deceased.

After breakfast, Yamamoto met Vice Admiral Ugaki outside his quarters. The chief of staff thought their new khakis looked “gallant,” but he also had to admit that seeing Yamamoto in the dark green uniform for the first time was “a bit strange.” They climbed into a car for the short ride to Lakunai and arrived precisely at 0600.

The traveling staff, arriving in several cars, pulled up alongside two Type 1
rikko
from Air Group 705, brought over that morning from Vunakanau. Admiral Ozawa was on hand for the departure, but Yamamoto did not linger before boarding his aircraft. In accordance with standard precautionary measures, the Combined Fleet Staff was divided between the two bombers: Yamamoto and three officers climbed aboard an olive-colored Betty with the number
323
painted on its vertical stabilizer, while Ugaki and three other staff officers were seated in the second Mitsubishi, numbered
326
.

The bombers took off to the southeast, passing over Matupit Harbor and the gaping crater of Tavurvur as they climbed. Behind them, six fighters of Air Group 204 roared up from the same airdrome and formed into two
shotais
, one taking position on the right side of the bombers, the other on the left. The pilot of the trailing bomber, FPO 1st Class Hiroshi
Hayashi, tucked in close along the left side of the lead aircraft, skillfully maintaining such a tight formation that Ugaki was afraid “their wingtips might touch.” But the chief of staff also appreciated being able to clearly see Yamamoto, who occupied the left front seat of the lead bomber, piloted by CPO Takashi Kotani.

THE BOMBERS’ FIRST destination was Ballale, an island so tiny that its crushed-coral airstrip reached from one side of the island to the other. Officially part of the Shortland group, the arrowhead-shaped isle lay fourteen miles southeast of Moila Point on the tip of Bougainville. The airfield was built by the Imperial Navy’s 18th Construction Battalion, headed by Lt. Cmdr. Noriko Ozaki, between November 1942 and January 1943. Because the Japanese had no bulldozers for such big projects, much of the labor was done by hand. In early December 1942, a shipment of 517 POWs arrived from Rabaul to work on the airfield—and therein lay another dark story of Japanese atrocities.

Known unofficially as the “Gunners 600,” the prisoners sent to Ballale were among the thousands of British soldiers captured after the surrender of Singapore the previous February. Some 50,000 POWs were initially held near Changi Prison, but in mid-October about 600 Royal Artillerymen were sent to New Britain. After three weeks of misery at sea aboard a “hellship,” they arrived at Kokopo on November 6. One prisoner had died en route, and many others were sick with dysentery, beriberi, and malaria. About a week later, 517 men were sent on to Ballale, leaving 82 of the sickest at Kokopo.

From the time of their arrival at Ballale, the British gunners were harshly treated. Ozaki himself was said to have beheaded a prisoner the next day, no doubt to establish his absolute authoritarianism. The POWs, housed in a compound of huts near the southwestern end of the airstrip, received no medical attention and were not allowed to dig or construct air-raid shelters. Korean laborers, Chinese prisoners, and native islanders also worked on the airfield, but they were strictly prohibited from making contact with the white prisoners.

The island’s occupants were all living on borrowed time. On January 15, 1943, a single B-17 from Guadalcanal bombed the airstrip, and within a matter of weeks, aerial attacks became heavier and more frequent. Unknown to the American aircrews, dozens or possibly even hundreds of
POWs were killed by friendly bombs. The Japanese permitted the burial of the victims, whereas POWs who died due to illness or neglect were placed in rice sacks and dumped at sea. By the time Yamamoto’s party approached Ballale, the tiny island had been hit at least fourteen times—and only a few dozen of the original 517 gunners were still alive.

Whether Yamamoto was aware of the British prisoners at Ballale is unknown. Either way, the gaunt, sickly survivors would probably have been kept out of sight while the commander in chief visited the garrison. There is no point in speculating further, however, because Yamamoto never reached the island.

AT 0710 ON SUNDAY, April 18, celebrated around Christendom as Palm Sunday, Maj. John W. Mitchell gunned his P-38 Lightning down the airstrip known as Fighter 2 on Guadalcanal. Behind him, seventeen hand-picked pilots—eight from the 339th Fighter Squadron commanded by Mitchell and nine from the 12th Fighter Squadron—waited their turn to roll. Over the past two days, aided by the expert staff at Fighter Command, Mitchell had carefully scripted a mission to intercept Yamamoto’s flight. A circuitous route, nearly five hundred statute miles in length, would be flown well out to sea at barely fifty feet of altitude to avoid all possibility of detection by Japanese coastwatchers. Navigation would rely entirely on dead reckoning, since the airmen would be flying too low to see any landmarks. Therefore, the compass headings, air speeds, and timing of the route’s five legs were laid out as precisely as possible. Yamamoto’s punctuality was well known to Allied intelligence, so Mitchell designed a scheme to catch the entourage at a point along the Bougainville coast, about ten minutes before the flight neared the airdrome at Buin. Four of the pilots, led by Capt. Tom Lanphier, were assigned as the “killer” flight. The remaining sixteen Lightnings would provide cover against counterattacking Zeros.

Within minutes of Mitchell’s takeoff, two Lightnings were scrubbed: one with a blown tire, the other with fuel transfer problems. Both were part of the attack flight, so two designated alternates—lieutenants Besby F. Holmes and his wingman, Raymond K. Hine—slid into the vacated spots. In all, sixteen pilots joined up and skimmed the waves as they headed outbound on the first leg of their roundabout route. At sea level the temperature was above ninety degrees, which meant the pilots sweated profusely as the sun blazed through their Perspex canopies. Mitchell’s wingman, 1st Lt. Julius
Jacobson, wondered how his squadron leader was handling the extraordinary responsibilities. He could only imagine the critical questions that must have constantly cycled through Mitchell’s mind:

Am I on course?

Did I turn to the compass heading on time?

Are the winds as predicted?

Will Yamamoto be there when we arrive?

Can we get him?

After completing the first four legs as carefully as he knew how, Mitchell turned to the final heading, which was pointed right into the morning sun. If everything went according to plan, the nineteen-mile-long northeasterly track would bring the P-38s to the coast of Bougainville in the vicinity of Torokina village, where they would intersect the path of Yamamoto’s aircraft at right angles.

The Lightning pilots squinted hard, trying to see through the glare caused by a thin layer of haze. So far they had maintained strict radio silence, but a few minutes into the final leg, the voice of 1st Lt. Douglas S. Canning suddenly filled their earphones: “
Bogeys, ten o’clock high!
”

AT 0730 JAPAN STANDARD TIME, Yamamoto’s flight was just beginning its descent over the jungles of Bougainville. Vice Admiral Ugaki, seated directly behind the pilot of the second bomber, was handed a note: the bombers would land at Ballale in fifteen minutes, exactly on schedule. Ugaki barely had time to digest the reassurance before the plane abruptly pitched downward. It took him a moment to realize that the pilot, Petty Officer Hayashi, was taking evasive action.

The bomber leveled off at 150 feet, and the flight crew jumped into action, opening gun blisters and the dorsal port. “
It got noisy for a while
with the handling of machine guns and the wind blowing in,” recalled Ugaki. Only later did he learn that the escorting Zeros had spotted enemy fighters and dived to intercept them. This alerted the bomber pilots, but there was nowhere to run. Within seconds, both of the Bettys were under attack.

AFTER FLYING FOR two hours on five different compass headings using only a simple compass and dead reckoning, John Mitchell’s P-38s intercepted the Yamamoto flight within a minute of the estimated time.
Jack Jacobson, like everyone else on the flight, considered Mitchell a magician. Undetected because of their olive drab paint, the Lightnings held their course and altitude until they were almost underneath the Japanese formation. Then Mitchell swung his fighters to a parallel course and hauled back on the controls in a thirty-degree climb. The other pilots followed with smooth coordination, sending their P-38s skyward like a volley of surface-to-air missiles.

“Skin ’em off,” Mitchell said over the radio, and the pilots flipped the switches that released their external fuel tanks.

The four shooters tightened their formation. Flying on Lanphier’s wing was 1st Lt. Rex T. Barber, followed by the two alternates, Holmes and Hine. But a problem arose when Holmes could not get his drop tanks to release. If they failed to disconnect, he would be out of the fight. He’d used up the tanks’ combined three hundred gallons of gasoline getting to Bougainville, which meant they now contained raw vapor—far more explosive than the fuel in its liquid state. He finally shrugged the tanks loose, but only after putting his P-38 into a power dive and then yanking back on the wheel while simultaneously kicking full left rudder. The sudden high-g maneuver literally ripped the tanks from beneath the wings. By this time, however, Holmes and his wingman (who had faithfully stuck with his leader) were out of position to attack the Bettys.

That left only Lanphier and Barber to charge after the bombers, which crossed their path from left to right while descending through three thousand feet. As the two fighters positioned themselves for an attack run, the three Zeros on the right side of the Japanese formation raced forward to intervene. Seeing their approach, Lanphier abandoned his gunnery run and pulled up to face the Zeros head-on.

John Mitchell, leading the top-cover Lightnings in a climb to their assigned altitude, could scarcely believe his eyes. The P-38 drivers had been instructed by Rear Admiral Mitscher to get Yamamoto “at any cost,” which meant ramming his bomber if need be. Tom Lanphier, the most talented young pilot in the killer group, was mere moments away from shooting down the most important target of the Pacific war—yet he deliberately turned away because of a few inconsequential Zeros. Flying on Mitchell’s wing, Jack Jacobson had a similar reaction. “
I cannot understand why
Lanphier would give up a hero’s chance of a lifetime by relinquishing his lead shot to his wingman,” Jacobson later wrote. “He was a very aggressive
combat fighter pilot; an ‘A’ type personality [with] political ambitions. Did he chicken out?”