Target: Rabaul (31 page)

For twenty-five minutes, the Japanese pilots harassed the strafers as they sped around the tip of Cape Gazelle. The B-25s tightened their formation, benefiting from one another’s top turrets and waist guns. By hugging the wave tops, they discouraged the Japanese from diving aggressively. Even so, some enemy pilots reportedly misjudged their rate of descent and cartwheeled into the sea. Turret gunners claimed ten Zeros shot down.

While True led three squadrons over Rapopo, the tail-end outfit had a different agenda. Armed with two thousand-pound bombs apiece, the B-25s of the 500th Squadron, led by Lt. Max H. Mortensen, were to “bomb and strafe shipping between Vunapope and Lesson Point as part of a coordinated assault on targets in the Rabaul area.”

But the coordinated plan no longer existed. There were no heavy bombers to crater the runways at Lakunai and Vunakanau, no P-38s to protect the strafers against marauding Zeros. After deciding to forge ahead without fighter cover, True probably should have altered the plan. But nothing was changed, so Mortensen and his pilots peeled off from the main formation to comply with the original orders.

Grouped in two elements, the six aircraft swung out from the left flank of the formation and headed toward Vunapope, the Catholic mission along Saint
George’s Channel west of Kokopo. The American crews were probably unaware that approximately 350 missionaries and civilians, including a bishop, were being held there as prisoners, but the captives were certainly aware of the American planes overhead. With their uncorked engine exhaust snarling, the B-25s zoomed over the twin spires of the impressive white cathedral and strafed several supply dumps alongside the waterfront. Two sizeable ships were anchored just offshore: the army cargo-passenger transport
Johore Maru
of nearly 6,200 tons, and a smaller merchantman of about 5,000 tons. Farther out in the channel, heading straight for Kokopo, the 167-foot sub-chaser
CH-23
cut a wake with her twin diesel engines.

Mortensen’s three-plane element went after the unidentified cargo ship. The leader dropped one of his thousand-pounders and Lt. Raymond A. Geer dropped two; all three missed, although their geysers drenched the ship with seawater. The strafers reported enthusiastically that the near misses rolled the vessel over.

Sweeping to the right, flying so low that their prop wash rippled the surface, Mortensen’s trio then charged at the sharply pointed prow of
CH-23
. Mortensen missed with his one remaining bomb, but Lt. Thane C. Hecox Jr. timed his two bombs beautifully. With fuses set to detonate after a delay of four to five seconds, the bombs landed slightly ahead of the ship. The sub-chaser’s forward progress made up the difference. A monstrous explosion seemed to obliterate the small warship, prompting the American crews to believe, justifiably, that they had destroyed it. Indeed,
CH-23
’s bow was blown off, and the ship was in imminent danger of sinking; however, its proximity to the shore enabled the crew to beach it. After extensive repairs,
CH-23
eventually returned to service.

While Mortensen’s element went after the warship, Capt. Lyle E. “Rip” Anacker’s element attacked
Johore Maru
. Strafing all the way in, the gunships set fire to the superstructure. Each then dropped their thousand-pounders. One bounced off the main deck and into the water. The other five struck nearby—three or four close enough to qualify as near misses—and the explosions noticeably lifted the vessel. The bomber crews claimed it as sunk, but it escaped serious damage. (Five days later, halfway to the Philippines, an American submarine torpedoed and sank
Johore Maru
.)

No sooner had Anacker’s flight swooped over the ship and begun to flee across Saint George’s Channel than a covey of enemy fighters attacked. Air Group 253 at Tobera had launched twenty Zeros, which scored hits almost immediately. The right engine of
Tondelayo
, Lt. Ralph G. Wallace’s gunship, belched smoke and vibrated severely. From atop the fuselage, the turret gunner could see a hole where a cylinder head should have been. Wallace set the controls for single-engine operation, retarding the throttle and feathering the number 2 prop, and the other two B-25s slowed their speed to match his. Following protocol, Wallace became the de facto element leader. Anacker in
SNAFU
tucked in behind Wallace’s left wing to provide protection, while Peterson positioned his B-25,
Sorry Satchul
, on the right.

The Japanese reacted to the cripple like sharks to blood. At reduced speed, three medium bombers could not fend off the frenzied Zeros indefinitely. Again the B-25s hugged the wave tops, closing ranks to combine their firepower as they tried to escape eastward over Saint George’s Channel. But one of the Zeros got to Peterson. The left engine burst into flames. With hydraulic power lost, the landing gear dropped from the nacelle, creating unwanted drag.
Sorry Satchul
rapidly lost speed. More Zeros swarmed in, one diving too low. He smacked into the water, his death witnessed by his wingman in Air Group 253. With no altitude to spare, Peterson’s aircraft soon hit the surface, tail first, and then slammed down with a tremendous splash. Crewmen aboard the other bombers watched as seven or eight Zeros strafed the ditched plane mercilessly. No one aboard the B-25 was believed to have gotten out alive.

The five remaining B-25s banded together for survival, slowed by
Tondelayo
. They made it around Cape Gazelle and turned south toward home, but saw what appeared to be “40 to 50 Zekes, Haps and Tonys” waiting for them at five thousand feet. In addition to the naval fighters from Lakunai and Tobera, it is likely that a few army fighters joined the fracas. Although no operational units were based at Rabaul—the Fourth Air Army’s regiments were in New Guinea—a small rear echelon or elements of a unit transitioning through Rabaul may have participated in the attacks.

Kiriwina was still three hundred miles distant when the badly mismatched fight began. Several enemy fighters made passes at Mortensen’s trio, but the Japanese could see that one of the B-25s had a feathered prop; thus the majority concentrated on Wallace and Anacker. For over an hour, from Cape Gazelle all the way down the New Britain coast, the Japanese made pass after pass from all directions. The only salvation, from the strafers’ perspective, was the fact that the enemy fighters could not attack from below—not while the B-25s flew a mere thirty feet above the water.

One Zero pilot demonstrated a fearsome level of audacity—and flying skill—by deliberately dropping into the narrow gap between
SNAFU
and
Tondelayo
. Described as “a mean-looking bastard,” the scowling pilot boldly held his position for longer than a minute, daring the gunners in either plane to open fire. None did, fearing that if the fighter suddenly flitted away, their bullets would hit the other B-25.

The upper gunner aboard
Tondelayo
, Staff Sgt. John A. Murphy, spun madly while firing short bursts at the crisscrossing fighters. When he ran out of ammunition, the engineer and radio operator grabbed several belts from the forward compartment and passed them over the bomb bay so Murphy could reload. They also assisted by watching the gunner’s feet to see which way the turret was pointed, so that they could call out any targets approaching from behind. Murphy was credited with shooting down several fighters, and the Japanese tried desperately to blast his turret. One came close, penetrating one of the turret’s Plexiglas panels with an armor-piercing round. The bullet missed Murphy but nicked a pressurized fuel line.

Another round from the same burst did even more harm.
Tondelayo
’s copilot, Lt. Edward J. Hicko, felt he wasn’t doing anything productive while the pilot manhandled the damaged plane, so he pulled out his service automatic, cracked open the side window, wedged the gun barrel against the window frame, and popped away at Zeros. While he held the pistol in his right hand to reload it, a Japanese bullet pierced his back. The slug passed through his intestines, exited his lower abdomen, then nearly severed his right thumb before damaging the grip of the automatic. Due to the racket of gunfire and the engine outside his window, Hicko didn’t realize immediately what had happened. The discovery of the wound stunned him; he refused to comprehend that he had been gut-shot.

The engineer, Staff Sgt. Weldon Ishler, was sickened by gas fumes. He punched a hole in the bulkhead of the bomb bay, discovered the damaged fuel line, and wrapped the line with a rag, using his bare hand as a clamp. This reduced the leak to a trickle, but he could not hold it indefinitely. Periodically, the radio operator took over. The fight rolled on. In the rear of
Tondelayo
, empty brass casings piled up beneath the turret. Up front, Hicko slumped in his seat, holding his hand against his abdomen as blood seeped between his fingers.

The enemy fighters would not slack off. Damage began to accrue. The turret gunner aboard
SNAFU
, Staff Sgt. Robert T. Henderson, was just as busy as Murphy. While frantically trying to reload his guns, Henderson was wounded by slugs that smashed through the Plexiglas. He fired a few more rounds before the guns were empty again. When the next enemy fighter bored in, he could only crouch behind the armor plate while bullets smacked all around him and chunks of Plexiglas rained down on his head.

Another crewmember aboard
SNAFU
, Staff Sgt. George M. Hardy Jr., was hit in the head. He made his way forward and got medical help from the navigator, Lt. Gerome A. Migliacci. While Migliacci administered first aid, a bullet sliced his ear and struck Hardy in the shoulder. Right after that, Migliacci noticed the fire. The bomb bay was crackling with bright flames, too involved already for a handheld fire extinguisher. But Migliacci tried anyway. Afterward, he moved forward and informed Anacker about the situation. The pilot merely glanced over his shoulder and nodded, then turned right, easing alongside the island’s shoreline. If a fuel line had been hit, Anacker had to ditch quickly before a fuel tank blew.

The crew of
Tondelayo
noticed
SNAFU
’s turn. Unable to see the fire, they wondered aloud where Anacker was going. The answer came moments later as the B-25 splashed down midway between Cape Orford and Waterfall Bay. The tail of
SNAFU
hit first, and then the nose slammed hard into the water. This time, Zeros did not cruelly strafe the helpless survivors. Four men emerged from the plane before it sank: Anacker, Migliacci, Henderson, and Hardy. All were alive, although Hardy was dying, evidently from his head wound. Migliacci, whose Mae West had inflated properly, cradled Hardy until he stopped breathing—and did not let got until the body turned cold and pale. Anacker had surfaced late, coming up within
fifty feet of Migliacci, but after they exchanged a few words, the pilot drifted away, never to be seen again.

That left just Migliacci and Henderson. Both struggled for several hours before reaching the shore. Henderson had a partially inflated raft, while Migliacci, initially pushed seaward by the currents, had only his Mae West. Over eight hours, their swimming and paddling caused a four-mile separation. Both men had the good fortune to be found the next day by natives from separate villages. They were led up a steep mountain to the camp of an Australian coastwatcher, who radioed word of their survival in his daily report.

After
SNAFU
slid away,
Tondelayo
faced the Japanese pilots’ full wrath. Still two hundred miles from Kiriwina, Wallace and his crew continued alone. Flying much of the time at minimum altitude, Wallace maneuvered the B-25 skillfully. The dual horizontal stabilizers and twin rudders helped immensely as he skidded from side to side, throwing off the enemy pilots’ aim. Sergeant Murphy ran out of ammunition in the power turret, but Wallace still had his battery of eight guns in the nose. If a fighter crossed in front or attempted a head-on pass, he would haul back on the control column and fire a burst. He achieved no recorded hits, but his crew claimed that Wallace’s uncanny maneuvering caused four enemy fighters to hit the water. At a point due north of Kiriwina, Wallace turned directly toward the island, still 160 miles away. Enemy fighters kept up their assault even as
Tondelayo
headed across the Solomon Sea, but the numbers dwindled until only one obstinate pilot remained. The fighter kept pace for a short while, and then reportedly performed two or three slow rolls in salute before turning back toward Rabaul.

At 1510, Wallace successfully touched down at Kiriwina, having flown for two hours and a quarter on one engine. Hicko was rushed to the base hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair his thumb and perforated intestines. The other crewmen were bloodied by nicks and cuts, and at least three were sickened temporarily by the gasoline leak.

Tondelayo
was in equally poor shape. The crew found forty-one holes, some large and jagged, yet the bomber had lived up to its rugged reputation. It would remain at Kiriwina for months, needing a new engine, a whole wing, radio equipment, and “many other repairs” before flying again. But it had brought its crew home alive.

AT DOBODURA AND Port Moresby, reaction to the mission was mixed. True and his pilots believed they had pulled off a surprising triumph under the circumstances. The six squadrons from the 38th and 345th Bomb Groups claimed forty-one enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground, thirty-eight fighters shot down, and three ships sunk.
^*

But many participants thought True would have to answer for continuing the mission after the fighter cover turned back. They were correct. “We thought, first of all, that he would get hell for it,” recalled Tatelman. “But later on he was made a hero because of the fact that the mission was a success. During the flight we had no idea that he had gotten the radio call to turn back. I was the wingman for Captain Baird on the flight, and I did not hear the call to turn back.”