Target: Rabaul (60 page)

Weather permitting, Maj. Gen. Mitchell scheduled increasingly heavy attacks against Rabaul almost daily. The operations staff rotated assignments to give every squadron a fair share of tough missions and days off, but that didn’t keep aggressive commanders like Bob Owens and Tom Blackburn from campaigning for every mission they could get. Their Corsairs did no one (except the Japanese) any good sitting in a revetment. Although some pilots were content to fly when they were told, and others feared Rabaul, many regarded the missions as gravy trains: they wanted to shoot down enemy planes and improve their individual records. In Owens’ squadron, Harold Spears ran up his score with three victories on January 18, two on January 20, and one more (plus a probable) on January 22. So did Don Aldrich, who racked up ten victories in two weeks, including four on January 28.

But no one could match Bob Hanson’s spree. He did not fly to Rabaul again until January 20, when he scored a single victory, then he destroyed three on January 22, four (plus a probable) on January 24, three (and one probable) on January 26, and four more on January 30. In just sixteen days, he was credited with
a phenomenal twenty Japanese fighters shot down in aerial combat. Combined with the five kills he had achieved during his first two combat tours, his personal score stood at twenty-five.

It was too good to be true. Other squadrons participated in the same missions, some claiming huge scores of their own. Blackburn’s VF-17 commenced their second combat tour at the new Piva Yoke airstrip on January 26, flying missions to Rabaul for five consecutive days. During that short span, the squadron was credited with the destruction of 57 enemy fighters. VMF-215 and the other marine squadrons, meanwhile, were credited with another 71 kills during the same five-day stretch. The aggregate claims (Hellcats and Lightnings shot down six more) added up to more than 130 enemy planes. Japanese losses were indeed heavy, with 36 planes missing or written off (and only a handful of pilots recovered), but the overclaiming ratio was still almost four-to-one. Competitive squadron commanders, complicit intelligence officers, and swaggering pilots all contributed to the phenomenon. As aviation historian Barrett Tillman would later describe it: “The process was wide open to error and abuse, and … the numbers raced out of all proportion.”

Hanson’s personal score was too meteoric. By January’s end, his squadron mates noticed irregularities. “Hanson would land about a half hour after everyone else came back from the mission and report his kills,” recalled George W. Brewer, a pilot who had joined the squadron shortly before the tour began. “His wingman, Sampler, would return with the rest of us.”

Lieutenant Samuel M. Sampler had flown the past few missions on Hanson’s wing, but only during the first portion of the flight. After escorting the bombers to their rally point, Hanson always managed to lose Sampler prior to engaging enemy fighters. Thus his claims could be neither confirmed nor denied. The squadron’s intelligence officer, relying on his own judgment and the honor system, rubber-stamped Hanson’s claims without verification. When questioned, Sampler would only state that “Hanson was a wild man and no wingman could stick with him.”

Brewer got up the gumption to directly question the ace:

I asked Hanson how he could get three and four kills per mission when Zeros were getting fewer and fewer. He told me his secret was that after the bombers dropped their bombs, instead of joining up with the squadron, he would proceed to the airfields south of Rabaul. He explained that there was always a cumulous buildup in that area, and that he would duck in and out of the clouds and shoot down Zeros that were returning to land. It seemed like a great idea to me.

The whole squadron was off the day after Hanson’s four-victory effort. Then foul weather set in, precluding any missions on February 1 and 2. Finally, a strike was scheduled for February 3, the day preceding Hanson’s twenty-fourth birthday,
with a preliminary briefing on the evening of February 2. After the essentials were reviewed—an attack on Tobera airdrome by SBDs and TBFs, with more than sixty fighters as escorts—flight leader Don Aldrich pulled Brewer aside for a confidential assignment. Aldrich had rearranged the division, putting Brewer on Hanson’s wing for the forthcoming mission. “He ordered me to stick with Hanson from takeoff to landing,” recalled Brewer, “so I could observe and confirm whatever happened.” Brewer understood the implications, and assured Aldrich that he had never become separated from his leader.

When the crews went out to the flight line the following morning, Hanson gave Brewer the silent treatment. This irritated Brewer, who asked Hanson if he had any instructions. “Just do what you always do,” Hanson replied, walking away. After a few steps he paused and half-turned toward Brewer. “By the way,” he added, “we may go down and strafe Cape Saint George on the way back.”

This didn’t surprise Brewer. Hanson had mentioned in his post-mission report on January 30 that he “ducked down and strafed a large house” there during the flight back to base. Brewer knew that if he pulled a stunt like that, “Big O” would ground him; however, Hanson, who hoped to be “on the next cover of
Life
magazine,” could make up his own rules.

The mission went smoothly at first, although Hanson gave Brewer the silent treatment again. Brewer flew in perfect echelon formation, but the ace never acknowledged his wingman’s presence. Over the target, the SBDs dropped forty-three thousand-pounders in the revetment area and TBFs scored thirteen direct hits on the runway. Four of the bombers were slightly damaged by antiaircraft fire, while more than a dozen Zekes dropped phosphorus bombs with no effect. All bombers rallied at four thousand feet at the assigned point and headed back to their respective bases.

With the bombers safely on their way, Hanson headed for towering clouds south of Tobera. Thus far, Brewer had not been challenged to keep his promise to Aldrich, but as he later explained, he was about to earn his pay:

My anticipation was great. I expected to see some shooting very soon. As we approached this large cumulonimbus cloud I moved in tight, knowing visibility would be almost zero inside. I was totally unprepared for what happened next. We were only a few seconds into the cloud when Hanson wrapped it up in a steep (almost vertical) bank to the left. The cloud was so dense I could barely make out the outline of his plane. Then, without warning, he reversed to nearly vertical turn to the right. I had been riding high on the outside of the turn, and when he suddenly reversed I had to tuck under very abruptly to avoid a midair collision.

He started another reversal, but this time I got smart. I pulled right under him and back about half a plane length, my prop spinning under the belly of his plane. From there I could match every movement of his wings
and I vowed he wasn’t going to lose me unless we had a collision and both ended up in a big fireball—which would have happened on that first reversal if I had not acted so quickly. He made three or four more turns, and by then I was really angry.

Brewer now understood what had happened to Sampler on previous missions: Hanson had deliberately thrown him off, and thus lost all credibility regarding his alleged kills. Brewer was appalled.

As though he knew the secret was out, Hanson did not bother to look for enemy planes that morning. Unable to shake Brewer, he exited the cloud and headed for Bougainville. Brewer pulled back into formation on Hanson’s wing, taunting nonverbally: “I’m still here.”

A few minutes later, Brewer spied a Zero below and to his right, heading toward the same cloud they had just exited. Two other Corsairs were chasing it, but had no hope of catching the Zero before it reached the cloud. Hanson was oblivious. Brewer briefly considered making a high-side run on the enemy fighter, then remembered his pledge to Aldrich. Unaware that he was passing up the only opportunity he would ever get to shoot down an enemy plane, he let the Zero go.

While Brewer debated his choices, another Zero slipped unseen onto his tail and opened fire. Brewer saw tracer rounds as they zipped past his canopy. Reacting instinctively, he pushed the big Corsair over into a full-throttle power dive and managed to lose his antagonist. But the engine had been hit. Flames licked back as far as the cockpit. Brewer leveled off, jettisoned the canopy, and had up to bail out—then realized he was still over the Gazelle Peninsula. Greatly fearing capture, he sat back down and decided to make for Saint George’s Channel. He stood a better chance of survival, he thought, if he ditched at sea. He retarded the throttle, and much to his amazement the fire went out. Even better, the engine still felt smooth. Sans canopy, trailing a ribbon of black smoke that would attract prowling Zeros, Brewer steered for Bougainville.

Then he got angry again. Hanson was gone. “Marines just do not go off and leave a crippled buddy,” Brewer reminded himself. “Not ever!”

Seeing the Corsair in distress, two Hellcat pilots joined up with Brewer. Relieved to see their grinning faces, he settled down as they escorted him to Vella Lavella. Safely on the ground, Brewer’s attention turned back to Hanson. He headed for the operations tent, intending to reveal Hanson’s misdeeds—but the lone wolf hadn’t come back. “I quickly learned that Hanson had caught up with the squadron,” Brewer later wrote. “Then, when they were passing nearby Cape St. George, he pulled out of formation, dived down to strafe it just as he had told me we might do, and was blown out of the air by the Jap gunners before he even crossed the beach. Members of the squadron, looking down from high altitude, saw him crash into the water.”

While the base buzzed with the news of Hanson’s death, Brewer reported to the intelligence officer. The nonflier showed little interest in Brewer’s report, except
when he mentioned the Zero being chased by two Corsairs. Later, Brewer was incensed to discover that the facts had been deliberately misrepresented. In the story the Marine Corps released, Hanson dove to the rescue of two Corsairs being chased by Zeros.

The whole affair left Brewer with “an abiding hatred of all public relations officers and the f---ing admirals and generals who encourage their staffs to tell bigger lies and put out bigger hype.” Hanson received a posthumous Medal of Honor. The hypocrisy of it, Brewer thought, deserved to be revealed, but he had a change of heart after concluding that Hanson’s parents, the Methodist missionaries, had already suffered enough pain. Blowing the whistle on their son would do more harm than good.

THE JAPANESE HAD their lone wolves as well. Some units, such as Air Group 253, did not acknowledge pilots’ individual scores, choosing instead to record victories as shared by the entire group. Other units recognized individual achievement. Warrant Officer Tetsuo Iwamoto, one of the top aces in the Imperial Navy, arrived at Rabaul in November 1943 with a detachment of fifteen Zeros. Initially assigned to Air Group 204, Iwamoto shot down about twenty Allied planes in one month.

Raised on a farm north of Hiroshima, Iwamoto began flying combat missions in central China in early 1938; later, as a member of the
Zuikaku
fighter group, he participated in famous events from Pearl Harbor to the Coral Sea. After a year and a half serving in the home islands, he went to the South Seas to defend Rabaul. So far, he had survived three intense months of combat there.

Iwamoto experienced his share of narrow escapes. After one engagement over Rabaul, mechanics discovered almost 170 holes in his aircraft. Several slugs had struck his seat, and two were lodged in the frame. Close calls don’t come much closer. But for all his luck in combat, the top ace had no defense against tropical disease. Stricken with dengue fever and malaria, Iwamoto spent several days convalescing, then took off on a fighter scramble before he was fully recovered. At the end of the flight he wobbled back to the command post and collapsed. Within days, however, he was back in the air.

Like many of his opponents, such as Hanson, Iwamoto preferred to fight alone. After the battles over Rabaul ended, while reminiscing with cronies, he told Warrant Officer Nishizawa, another top ace, “I would avoid the enemy when he came into attack,” confirming what many Allied pilots reported. “I would wait until he was withdrawing, chase after him, and then shoot him down. In other words, I would wait at altitude over Rabaul and pick off the ones who were leaving the fight with a single burst. These guys would already be thinking of home and didn’t want to fight any more. They would try to make a run for it, so it was easy to shoot them down. I once shot down up to five in one fight that way.”

Nishizawa told Iwamoto he was “cheating,” and accused him of simply picking off strays that “were damaged or got cold feet.” Nishizawa thought that such kills should be shared.

“But if I didn’t shoot them down,” replied Iwamoto, “they’d make it back to their base, wouldn’t they?” He then talked about situations when the Allies had the numerical advantage. “When there’s just too many of them, and I figure there’s no way to win,” he said, “I close my eyes and charge head-on into the middle of the enemy formation with my guns firing the whole time, and turning my control column like crazy until I go out the other side.”

The repartee continued, but Nishizawa finally capped it by claiming he had downed more Allied planes than Iwamoto. “When I shot down 100,” Nishizawa added, “I got a personal commendation and a sword from commander-in-chief Kusaka.”

Aside from their one-upmanship, the Japanese typically shared similar opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of Allied fighters. Warrant Officer Sadamu Komachi, a
Reisen
pilot from Ishikawa Prefecture, arrived at Rabaul in December 1943 after a lengthy home tour in Japan. A veteran of Pearl Harbor, the Coral Sea, and several other early battles, he noticed dramatic differences between the Allied fighters he had faced in 1942 and those he fought in the skies over Rabaul. Initially assigned to Air Group 204, he revealed some of his insights in a postwar interview:

As the war progressed, the difference in aircraft development capability between Japan and the USA became marked. Take, for example, the specifications of the Zero Type 52 and the Grumman F6F Hellcat, both introduced in 1943. The differences are glaring. The F6F’s engine was 2,100 horsepower versus the
Reisen’s
1,130 horsepower, while top speed was 611 kilometers per hour against the
Reisen’s
565 kilometers per hour. Japan’s prized
Reisen
had by then been, developmentally, completely outclassed.