Whip (19 page)

They swept low over the destroyer and Joe Leski's jubilant voice banged in their headsets.

"One hit and a miss!" he shouted. "You got one into the engine room, boss! She's busting in half!"

By now they were tensed for the hail of fire from the other two destroyers as they rushed into close gun range. But there were only a few tracers.

The gun positions had been shattered. Blood and pieces of body and smoking metal littered the warship decks.

Three five-hundred-pound bombs smashed into the lower hull and superstructure of the second destroyer. The entire warship lifted from the sea, breaking in half a dozen places, and fell back a mass of steaming, burning chunks disappearing beneath scalding spray.

Ted Ashley and Jim Whitson in Five and Six didn't sink their target. They got one bomb into the stern that tore away the rudder and probably the screws as well. Flames erupted from below decks. The ship seemed to stagger as it drifted to a halt, burning, covered with broken and dying men.

"Watch those Zeros," someone called.

"Second group, they're coming at you from seven o'clock."

"We got 'em."

The second group of seven bombers led by Octavio Jordan was chewing up great pieces of barges and the soldiers jam-packed onto the decks. It was a brief but terrible slaughter when the Zero fighters came swarming in. But they didn't have any room to dive, they couldn't come up from below and they were forced to make curving pursuit runs or slide in from dead astern.

"Jordan, bring your people around in a sharp left turn," Whip called.

"Gotcha." With the answer they saw seven bombers clawing around in near-vertical banks. It held the Zeros off for just enough time. As the fighters came whipping around to follow the bombers they were in long turns to which they were committed.

It was a perfect setup. Six B-25s with forty-eight machine guns were cutting in, and the effect was devastating. Three Zeros exploded as they ran into the howling buzz saws hurled at them. The sudden effect threw off the others, let their targets break free. But only for a moment. Seven Zeros hammered in, snapping out bursts. A B-25 trailed smoke.

"Muhlfield here. I'm dumping." He salvoed his remaining bombs. "Gotta shut down number two." He feathered the right prop. He was now meat on the table for the fighters.

"Dusty, salvo your goodies and stay with Mule."

"Wilco from Eleven."

Dusty Rhodes would ride it out with the crippled bomber. The clouds were now a break for Mule. Before the Zeros could get it all over him he'd cleaned up his airplane and was easing into the clouds so low above the water. Moments later they were gone and the easy pickings for the fighters had vanished.

Eleven bombers remained, with frustrated Zero pilots doing their best to break off the strikes.

"Jordan, keep your group tight. Don't form up on us. I want everybody to go after those troopships, but keep it in two groups. Jordan, you lead. Keep weaving until you're ready to drop. Everybody make your run at the same time."

"Roger that." Jordan acknowledging.

"Group One, stay tight on me. Let's scissor them, troops."

Ahead of Whip's plane, five B-25s in a tight bunch made their run on the two troopships.

The Zeros snarled after them, holding with the bombers as they kept up a sliding maneuver to the left. As the fighters pressed home their attacks Whip's force of six bombers was in a slide to the right. The scissors maneuver baffled them. Without warning streams of tracers were all around the Zeros. They broke off their runs, turned into their new assailants, stumbled into massive firepower. One Zero cartwheeled wildly through the air, breaking up as it struck the water.

More important, Jordan's force was laying it right into the large ships filled with soldiers.

Lou Goodman, able to turn his attention to whatever caught his eye, watched in fascination as dark shapes dropped neatly away from the five bombers. The splashes were stupidly neat and clean in this churning mixmaster of death. Skips appeared again as the bombs bounced. There was a third skip, a multiple series of splashes, and then Goodman was counting in rapid-fire fashion the enormous explosions that smashed the thin-hulled troopships. Ten bombs had been dropped and six hit home, two in the leading ship and four in the second. Lou Goodman never
saw
the second ship again; it went up in huge chunks and came down in smaller ones. The lead vessel was a torrent of flames from bow to stern. Men were leaping into the water.

The B-25 shook from a new sound. Smoke filled the cockpit and explosions roared around Goodman's head. Whip jinked wildly to throw off the Zero that had hit them.

"Watch it, Lead. Another coming in from five o'clock."

"We see 'em." A burst of roaring vibration as Bruce Coombs opened up in his turret.

More firing; Leski and Gall were firing from the waist positions.

"Two more from six o'clock, troops."

"We see 'em."

"Got the bastard!"

"Yeah, a flamer."

"Watch it, you guys. They're coming in from — " The voice broke off. They didn't know who it was.

Alex was having fits in their own cockpit, coughing, dragging back the side windows on his side, hitting switches. Electrical fire. He was shutting down systems. He coughed out his words. "We're… all right. Stay with it."

"Hang in there, people," Whip told his crew. "No marsh-mallows yet."

More firing. The horizon tilted wildly. "Everybody go after the barges," Whip ordered. A good move; nothing left to hit in larger ships. That destroyer was still afloat, but drifting away from the action, a crippled hulk.

They kept off the Zeros without further loss to either side as everyone rolled into their firing runs. God
help them
, and Lou Goodman was amazed with his own thoughts.

Suddenly the Japanese on those barges weren't enemy soldiers. They were men, helpless, pinned to the water as the bombers swept in upon them.

The air churned into a pink froth above the barges. The terrible fifties had swept entire decks clean of human beings.

18

"Black Fox to Brigade One. Come in. Over."

Whip looked up, startled. That was the call sign of a P-39 outfit at Seven-Mile.

"Brigade One to Black Fox. Where the hell are you?"

"Black Fox is coming in from the south. We're on the deck. Six Cobras. Sorry we're late.

What's your situation?"

"We got plenty of company. How far out are you?"

"We'll be there in less than a minute."

"We can use you. We're to the west of that group of burning ships. We — "

"Have you in sight."

"Can you see our little friends?"

"Roger that. Looks like they're getting close."

"Close enough, Black Fox. Can you get to them before we come around again to the barges?"

"Tight, but we can do it."

"Good show. We'll concentrate on the barges."

"Glad to help out."

Whip still didn't know who had laid on six Airacobras as assistance in the low-level strike, but God bless him. Sending in the P-39s on the deck, where the Japanese would have to stay low, was a godsend for the American fighters, because once you got over a thousand feet in the 39 the pilot went into automatic nosebleed and the airplane turned into a lead brick.

Whip looked back, saw the six long-nosed fighters pounding to get into position to hit the Zeros from the side and take them off the American bombers. Great; they could wrap up the slaughter now just the way he —

"Oh,
shit
." Someone called from the back of the plane, then screamed into the radio.

"Black Fox, Black Fox,
break, break
!"

The Japanese, damn them, couldn't have timed it better. That top cover of Zero fighters.

Everyone had forgotten about them and all this time they'd been working their way down through thick clouds. Now they
were
down, and as the P-39s curved in for their attack against the Zeros pursuing the bombers, the second force of twelve Zeros came whistling in low over the sea.

If the
P-39 pilots had broken, sharp left
or
right, when the frantic warning went to them, they would have slipped through the vise. But their leader hesitated instead of reacting instantly, as he should have done, for it was the
only
thing to do. "
Break, break
!" Again that call, now near-hysterical, because the bomber crews could see it all coming, what was going to happen, and that stupid son of a bitch in the lead fighter —

They broke, a sharp rolling motion to the right, but it was too late. They rolled right just in time to expose their cockpits and the tops of their fighters to the Zeros, who had stayed in tight formation, and it was duck soup for the Japanese. Just like that, before they blinked several times, cannon fire tore four of the American fighters into wreckage or red-blossoming fireballs, and the remaining two were trying wildly to save themselves.

"Brigade Leader to Black Fox. Get the hell out of there. Climb out, climb out."

The P-39s were worse than useless. Whip was even debating about going to
their
help.

But they were almost onto the barges, they still had half their ammunition left and there were still hundreds of enemy troops, ripe for the kill, and that was his mission, his job, why they were here, why men were dying and others about to be killed.

By now there were sixteen or maybe eighteen or even twenty Zeros coming after them.

Whip could have broken off the mission at that very moment, and half his men expected him to do just that. They'd broken the back of the Japanese force, killed more than half or even two thirds of all the men and they were still in good shape.

But Whip wasn't having any of it. It was time to find out just how they could hold their own in the kind of situation in which B-25s had classically gotten the shit kicked out of them. The Zeros were hard after them in a loose swarm, some coming in directly from behind, others in pursuit curves, so that their tight formation had bellied out and lost the advantage of concentrated firepower.

"Everybody close in on me," Whip ordered.

No need to answer. Pilots nudged throttles, slid in closer, moved in tight, arranged themselves in a clustered formation.

"Stay tight. Get those barges."

Lieutenant J.G. Masahiko Obama observed the American bombers grouping together.

He laughed to himself in his cockpit. Like so many frightened sheep, bunching up, as if dying together could take away the fear.

Obama was mightily pleased with the sight. The B-25s must fly straight ahead. If they turned they only exposed themselves more to the pursuing Zero fighters. And the last time he had found this plump morsel before him Obama had personally shot down one bomber and shared another kill with Ariya Inokuchi.

It was already a beautiful day. Although he had not thought it would be. They had circled around and around stupidly above the clouds while the smaller force stayed low over the ships and barges. How the B-25s had managed to make their terrible blows against the ships without the Zero fighters interfering was something to which Obama would attend when he was back at Lae. They had received the frantic calls for help, and Obama took his Zeros down through very bad turbulence. The sight that greeted the Japanese pilot stunned him. Burning ships, barges wrecked in all directions, men floating on the sea. And almost at the same moment he caught sight of the six Airacobras. The cows with long noses. Obama expected a brief and furious fight with the American fighters. The bombers could have gotten away in the clouds, but then the Americans did a stupid thing.

They
stayed
in their formation run against the smaller force of Zeros. Stayed in it! Surely someone in those fighters or the bombers must have seen Obama's force and called for them to break. Obama could not believe their air discipline was so lax, but against all his fears, the Americans had kept their wide turn, and when finally they did break, they were helpless.

Obama watched the lead fighter growing in his sights. Strange; for an airplane so beautiful in its design the enemy machine was a poor weapon. Its rate of turn made it an easy victim. Obama closed in, disdaining use of the two light machine guns, using only the cannon. He held his fire until the last moment. A short burst on the gun tit and cannon shells exploded in the wing root of the leading Airacobra. Under the pressure of that turn and the erupting power of the 20mm cannon shells the wing snapped off as if it were cardboard. Obama denied himself the luxury of watching the American tumble into the sea. He eased in rudder and the cockpit of the second plane was before him, and he watched his cannon shells rip through the plexi-glas before they exploded. The Airacobra went straight in.

Two more of the American fighters exploded under the guns and cannon of the Japanese Zeros. Then the surviving Airacobras were gone. "Stay with me," Obama signaled the other men. It was not really necessary. Two more fighters were small game. Up ahead were those bombers. They were the real targets.

It was too late to prevent the terrible massacre among the barges. Obama had a question cross his mind fleetingly: how were the Americans doing so much damage with only their guns? He would think of it later. Right now they were moving into position and the American gunners had opened fire at long range. Masahiko Obama did not lightly dismiss the defensive firepower of the B-25. A fifty-caliber machine gun is an effective weapon. They were fortunate in that the Americans were usually poor marksmen.

The Zero rocked in the turbulent air trailed by the enemy bombers. Obama noticed the Americans were holding excellent formation. So! These were better than average.

Glowing coals raced by his cockpit. Obama ignored the tracers. You do not pursue and catch your enemy by dodging fireflies. He kept pressing in. A good enemy only made the victory that was to come all the sweeter.

Obama glanced left and right and pumped his fist up and down to signal his men to close in to the attack. Then he concentrated on the last bomber on the right side of the enemy formation. Just a few seconds more and he would open fire with his cannon. He already had nine American flags on the side of his cockpit. The two kills of the Airacobras would make it eleven, and here was his chance to add even more.