Target: Rabaul (6 page)

Sutherland, speaking for MacArthur, came to an agreement with Halsey’s and Nimitz’s delegates. Their report to the Joint Chiefs stated that SOWESPAC and SOPAC forces “would be able to advance as far as the southeast part of Bougainville, seize eastern New Guinea up to Madang, extend to Woodlark and Kiriwina in the Trobriand Islands, and advance to Cape Gloucester in western New Britain.”

This statement brought the Pacific Military Conference to an anticlimactic conclusion. On March 28, the Joint Chiefs issued a new directive, canceling the original document that had called for the capture of Rabaul.

Three tasks were given, but without estimated timelines or even a proposed schedule:

1. The establishment of airfields on Kiriwina and Woodlark islands.

2. The seizure of Lae, Salamaua, Finschhafen, Madang, and western New Britain (Cape Gloucester).

3. The seizure of the Solomon Islands to include the southern portion of Bougainville.

The objectives were essentially the same as those listed in Task Two of the original directive. For all the heated debates during the conference, the JCS and Pacific delegates had circled back to a document written eight months earlier. Furthermore, they settled on attempting only one of the two remaining phases. During the remainder of 1943, the capture of Rabaul was out of consideration.

When the conference officially concluded on March 28, new orders were radioed to MacArthur to establish airbases on Woodlark and Kiriwina, seize the Japanese outposts on the northern coast of New Guinea, and then undertake the occupation of western New Britain. Halsey received orders to advance up the Solomon Islands as far as the southern portion of Bougainville.

Kenney couldn’t wait to leave Washington. He had spent three weeks with Sutherland, whose condescending manner had not won any friends. Even though it annoyed him, Kenney tolerated Sutherland’s shortcomings to the point that he frequently came to the latter’s defense. “I’m glad it’s over,” he wrote in his diary. “I’ve had a continuous problem on my hands explaining to everyone that Sutherland is OK, and that his arrogance is only apparent—not real. Sometimes I get away with it, but too many people just don’t like him.”

Kenney had better things to do than defend Sutherland. The real conflict, he knew, was ten thousand miles away, and it had nothing to do with ambitions or egos. Eager to leave the trappings of Washington behind, Kenney wanted only to get back to the war.

*
The name was allegedly inspired by Elkton, Maryland, known before the war as a city where elopers could arrange a fast wedding.

CHAPTER 3

New Guinea Graveyard

B
OLSTERED BY SUCCESS
in Washington, Kenney enjoyed the return trip to Australia. During an overnight stop in San Francisco, he and the other delegates checked into the Hotel Saint Francis, a landmark he knew well from his tour as commanding general of the Fourth Air Force. The manager treated Kenney and his companions to a private dinner, but Kenney was disappointed to learn that the hotel’s renowned chef was no longer in the kitchen. The manager explained that Georges Raymond had been drafted and sent to Hawaii, where the army knew nothing of his talents. Kenney made a note to contact Lt. Gen. Delos C. Emmons, the commanding general of the Hawaiian Department, to arrange Raymond’s transfer to the Southwest Pacific. The trick would be to make the request appear random. “There is a cook for me,” Kenney wrote in his diary, “if I can gyp Emmons out of him.”

Returning to Brisbane on April 6, Kenney debriefed MacArthur on the successful conference. “I told him that we would still be pinched for a few months,” Kenney recalled, “but that by August or September the flow would really start, and then we could go places. I never saw him look so cheerful.”

But Kenney himself was still troubled. A rash of recent accidents reminded him of Howard Ramey’s death. In fact, several of the most influential men in the Fifth Air Force had been killed during the first few months of 1943, and the trend showed no signs of stopping.

The loss of Ken Walker over Rabaul on January 5 had not only been controversial, but it cast a long shadow over V Bomber Command. Walker had disobeyed two of Kenney’s orders that day. A dedicated proponent of strategic daylight bombing, Walker believed that his convictions outweighed the risk of punishment and altered the schedule to put the bombers over Rabaul at noon rather than early in the morning, as specified by Kenney. He did this in the hope of validating his expertise, but only twelve bombers took part in the main attack. The Japanese intercepted vigorously with a mix of army and navy fighters, taking full advantage of the bombers’ lack
of forward armament. Repeated frontal attacks mortally damaged Walker’s B-17,
San Antonio Rose
, last seen heading down, trailing smoke, hounded by fifteen enemy fighters.

In the months since, there had been no daylight attacks on Rabaul. Respecting the stout fighter defenses, V Bomber Command restricted missions against the stronghold to nighttime, when there was little threat of interception. Not that the Japanese didn’t try. Air Group 204 occasionally sent Zeros up at night to attempt coordinated intercepts with searchlight teams, but their effect was minimal. At the time, the Japanese had no radar guidance systems capable of controlling night intercepts. The Zeros occasionally scored hits, but the bomber crews worried more about Rabaul’s antiaircraft batteries.

One of the most innovative night raids on Rabaul had occurred while Kenney was in Washington. Just before midnight on March 22, nine B-17s of the 63rd Bomb Squadron and one from the 403rd took off from Jackson Field, Port Moresby. Most carried twenty-four 100-pound bombs wrapped with wire, called daisy cutters. Lieutenant James C. Dieffenderfer, flying
Old Baldy
, carried four 500-pounders with an early form of proximity fuse called the “advanced action fuse,” designed to explode the bomb three hundred feet above the ground; he also had four 500-pounders fitted with delayed fuses. Captain Harry A. Staley and the crew of
Pluto
carried eight 500-pounders with proximity fuses; and Maj. Jay P. Rousek, commanding officer of the 403rd, toted four 1,000-pound bombs with advanced action fuses.

Captain Carl A. Hustad, flying a B-17E named
Monkey Bizz-Nes
, carried a bomb load with a unique purpose. Shackled in the bomb bay were two of the heaviest bombs in the Fifth Air Force inventory, each packing the explosive equivalent of two thousand pounds of TNT. After the other B-17s attacked Lakunai airdrome, Hustad was to drop his blockbusters, fitted with forty-five-second delayed fuses, into the crater of a nearby volcano. In theory, the huge explosions would trigger a spontaneous eruption, which might blanket Lakunai airdrome with lava or even wipe out Rabaul. The concept had merit. The Allies were aware that a major eruption had badly damaged Rabaul six years earlier, but no one knew what might happen when heavy bombs detonated inside a crater. Anticipating the worst, Hustad was to wait fifteen minutes after the other bombers had cleared the area. After releasing his bombs, he would dive steeply and gain as much speed as possible, thereby putting ample distance between his crew and the expected eruption.

Although one B-17 turned back due to engine failure, the mission proceeded as planned. Searchlights and antiaircraft fire made several crews abort their bomb runs over Lakunai and try again. Eventually they hit the target area with all but four of the daisy cutters. Dieffenderfer silenced some of the antiaircraft fire and knocked out searchlights on Matupit Island, adjacent to the airdrome, with his four aerial-burst bombs. On his next run, he planted the four delayed-fuse bombs in
the runway. The timers were set to explode the bombs twelve hours later, creating havoc among the Japanese repair crews.

After the other B-17s turned homeward,
Monkey Bizz-Nes
conducted its bomb run. However, as described later in the 63rd Squadron’s war diary, the effort failed: “Major Hustad experimented on bombing Rabatana crater with 2 x 2000 demo bombs with 45 sec. delay fuses. The bombs fell within the crater but were not seen to explode.”

Even if both bombs had gone straight down the pipe, the probability of an eruption was remote. For starters, there was no volcano named Rabatana at Rabaul; instead, the men were likely referring to Rabalanakaia, one of six volcanos on the promontory known as Crater Peninsula. But that particular volcano was dormant. Coincidentally, just two miles to the southeast sat an ugly, menacing volcano named Tavurvur, which had erupted violently in May 1937. Semiactive through much of 1943, it occasionally spewed great clouds of corrosive ash and noxious sulfur fumes. If the bomb experiment were to have a prayer of succeeding, then Tavurvur would have been the volcano to experiment on.
^*

THREE DAYS AFTER taking part in the volcano-bombing mission, the B-17
Pluto
failed to return from a reconnaissance flight. On board was Ramey, who three months earlier had replaced the late Ken Walker as head of V Bomber Command. Enthusiastic about skip-bombing, Ramey got along well with Brigadier General Whitehead and deserves a share of the credit for the victory in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. Three weeks after the battle, on March 26,
Pluto
took off from Port Moresby for a routine reconnaissance mission. The radio operator sent an outbound message twenty minutes after departure, but nothing more was heard from the bomber or its crew. To date, no trace of them has been found.

Ramey’s disappearance meant that Whitehead would have to serve once again as the temporary head of bomber command. He was qualified, but had been in the combat zone at Port Moresby for nearly eight months. Suspecting that his deputy was on the verge of exhaustion, Kenney headed up to New Guinea on April 10 and took over the day-to-day operations of ADVON, as well as V Bomber Command, for a few weeks. Whitehead departed that afternoon, with orders from Kenney to spend the rest of the month on leave in Australia.

As the interim head of bomber command, the first responsibility Kenney faced was a disciplinary action involving one of his favorite pilots, whom he referred to collectively as his “kids.” Major Kenneth D. McCullar, one of the fastest-rising stars in the Fifth Air Force, was handsome, outgoing, and aggressive. A swashbuckling bomber pilot, he had demonstrated extraordinary ability and bravery, earning a spot on Kenney’s A-list. As an original member of Bill Benn’s 63rd Squadron, McCullar
was an early pupil of skip bombing. A Mississippian with an affinity for gambling (the serial number of his first B-17, named
Black Jack
, ended in 21), he had scored direct hits during his inaugural effort—and on virtually every mission since.

Kenney had grown fond of McCullar, whose bravery and fortitude became legendary during the battle for Buna. On November 24, 1942, after flying two daytime strikes against enemy positions on the New Guinea coast, McCullar took his crew up for a night attack.
Black Jack
accompanied six other B-17s to locate and destroy a high-speed enemy convoy headed for Lae. After spotting the warships in the Huon Gulf, McCullar descended to two hundred feet and raced over the waves for his first skip-bombing run. He released two bombs, which exploded near the stern of the target, possibly
Otori
. Classified as a torpedo boat, but nearly the size of a destroyer, the warship was slightly damaged that night by a near miss. In turn, antiaircraft fire rocked the tail of
Black Jack
, starting a blaze in an ammunition canister. One of the gunners smothered the flames with a blanket and flying gear while other crewmen rushed aft with extinguishers.

With the fire out, McCullar made a second skip-bombing run on a big destroyer. His bombs hit “directly on or very near the boat,” and flames gushed from its starboard bow. This was almost certainly
Hayashio
, a 2,500-ton destroyer. Badly damaged, with fifty crewmen dead, she had to drop anchor while damage control teams fought unsuccessfully to contain the fire. When the flames neared the magazines, another destroyer took off the surviving crew before finishing
Hayashio
with a torpedo.

Black Jack
had not gone unscathed. Return fire from the warship had slightly wounded three crewmen; nevertheless, McCullar began a third low-level attack. He had to abort it when enemy shellfire hit the B-17’s left outboard engine. The controls were shot away, leaving McCullar unable to feather the prop. His Irish blood up, he climbed to 1,500 feet and assessed the damage, then descended slightly and initiated another attack. His bombs landed close, but
Black Jack
was hit again, this time in the fuel system for the right inboard engine. McCullar climbed again and took stock of the bomber’s condition. Incredibly, with one engine dead and another running roughly, he initiated a fifth bomb run.

Just after the last bombs fell (with no reported results), the limping engine died. McCullar feathered the prop, but could not maintain altitude on two engines. While he and the copilot “tried to bring no. 3 in again,” they kept an eye on the left outboard engine, which glowed red from the heat of the runaway propeller. The navigator and bombardier were ordered out of the nose compartment in case the prop spun off. Finally the tortured engine began cooling down. Its reduction gear stripped, the propeller had literally ground loose at the shaft. Meanwhile, the pilots continued working the controls for the damaged engine. Eventually they got twenty inches of manifold pressure, then twenty-five inches—just enough to maintain minimum rpm. After the crew jettisoned the ammunition and loose gear,
Black Jack
began to inch upward. Two and one-half hours later, McCullar had
nursed the crippled bomber to ten thousand feet. The next challenge was the Owen Stanley Mountains, which soared to thirteen thousand feet. Luckily the navigator found a pass, and
Black Jack
squeaked through. The remainder of the flight was anticlimactic, as summed up nonchalantly by McCullar: “[We] landed okay and forgot about it.”