Fortress Rabaul (10 page)

Gray was destined for much worse. The
Kempeitai
, more determined than ever to capture Scanlan, set up a cordon of outposts across the lower Gazelle Peninsula to guard the main trails. Almost daily, exhausted Aussies walked out of the jungle and turned themselves in, but Scanlan remained at large for two weeks after the massacre at Tol. The
Kempeitai
were not stupid. By this time they realized that Gray, having earlier accompanied Scanlan across the Baining Mountains, probably knew more about the
colonel’s intentions than anyone on the island. Thus, they subjected the thirty-four-year-old engineer to their unique brand of interrogation.

On the morning of February 20, Gray was led to a palm tree about fifty yards from the bishop’s residence at Vunapope. He was lashed to the tree and tortured for several hours. At one point a soldier scooped up a nest of red ants and threw them on Gray, who squirmed and twisted against the ropes as the insects bit him. The day-long interrogation was witnessed at various times by four local islanders—two villagers and two native catechists—who later provided testimony about Gray’s torture.

Finally untied from the tree, Gray fell to the ground but got back on his feet in a silent show of defiance. The Japanese then led him to a remote spot where a medical doctor named Chikumi, attached to the 144th Infantry Regiment, administered “injections” and cut open Gray’s chest. The captain was still alive when his heart was removed so that Chikumi could observe the results. Circumstantial evidence suggests that someone administered the
coup de grace
with a bullet. Chaplain May, on duty at the native hospital, heard the shot.

Gray died protecting the secret of Scanlan’s whereabouts. But the very next day, the colonel and his party walked up to a
Kempeitai
outpost near the Warangoi River and surrendered.

CHAPTER 6

Counterattack

A
LTHOUGH VIRTUALLY NO ONE
in Australia knew what had happened on New Britain, the evidence was overwhelming that a Japanese force now controlled the island. Rabaul had changed hands. Overnight, it had become the most important target in the Southwest Pacific. In fact, within hours of the invasion the RAAF began planning its first counterattack.

The only Australian base within range of Rabaul was Port Moresby, located on the Gulf of Papua in what was formerly British New Guinea. The colonial township boasted two airdromes—Seven Mile, named for its distance by road from the center of town, and Kila Kila, a small airstrip near the coast southeast of town—plus an excellent harbor with an RAAF seaplane facility.

The latter was especially important. Rabaul lay five hundred miles northeast of Port Moresby, and only one type of plane in the RAAF inventory was capable of delivering a load of bombs that far: the American-built Consolidated PBY Catalina. Powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney radial engines, the ungainly flying boat could carry up to four thousand pounds of bombs on external wing racks and stay airborne for more than twenty hours. But the Cat-boat was also plodding and awkward. With a full combat load of fuel, bombs, machine gun ammunition, and eight crewmen aboard, the Catalina tipped the scales at more than seventeen
tons, cruised at less than one hundred miles per hour, and had a maximum ceiling of only eighteen thousand feet.

The distance to Rabaul was not the greatest obstacle. That distinction belongs to a unique combination of the complex tropical weather systems and mountainous islands that define the Southwest Pacific. Few places on the planet are as challenging to human existence as New Guinea, the world’s second largest island. The Australian territory, primarily the Papuan Peninsula, is dominated by a range of jumbled, precipitous mountains that form the peninsula’s elongated spine.

Words can scarcely do justice to the Owen Stanley Mountains, which soar dramatically to more than thirteen thousand feet within a few dozen miles of Port Moresby. The lower slopes are heavily forested, with huge exotic hardwoods protruding from a jungle canopy so dense that daylight barely penetrates to the ground. The upper slopes are often invisible, shrouded by clouds of mist or drenching squalls that ride the updrafts and downdrafts like ghostly apparitions.

Beyond the mountains, aviators flying to Rabaul faced a long journey over the Solomon Sea, where the weather was frequently treacherous. The warm waters, seasonal wind patterns, and a host of other meteorological factors influenced a system known as an intertropical convergence zone (also called an intertropical front), a semipermanent disturbance capable of producing ultra-severe thunderstorms. The thunderheads frequently topped out at forty thousand feet or higher—well above the altitude limitations of most World War II aircraft—and planes that tried to penetrate the front could expect to encounter extremely violent turbulence and frequent lightning.

Because of the weather, the first attempt to hit Rabaul on the night of January 23 was unsuccessful. The next effort began the following afternoon when Thomas McBride Price, a twenty-seven-year-old squadron leader from Adelaide, South Australia, briefed five Catalina crews at the RAAF’s forward area headquarters in Port Moresby. After receiving their assignments, the airmen were transported down to the waterfront, where they boarded “an ugly old bomb scow” that took them out to the Catalinas moored in the harbor.

Soon, puffs of whitish smoke drifted across the water as ten radial engines were started. Presently the seaplanes moved from their moorings and taxied sluggishly to the downwind end of the harbor, their broad hulls
riding low in the water. One by one they turned into the wind and went to full throttle, their engines screaming at maximum power. It took several nerve-wracking minutes for the overloaded planes to gradually build up enough speed to break contact with the water. Once airborne, the Catalinas climbed slowly and banked to the southeast. Far too heavy to climb above the Owen Stanley Mountains, they were forced to take a lengthy detour around the Papuan Peninsula before turning northward toward Rabaul.

As daylight faded, the crews ate a meal prepared in the in-flight galley. Later that evening, the Catalinas reached the intertropical convergence zone parked over the Solomon Sea. Flying at an altitude of only a few thousand feet, barely making ninety miles per hour because of their heavy bomb load, the seaplanes plowed through the fattest, most turbulent portion of the front. Inside the storm, the aircraft bucked violently. “
It was an amazing thing
,” recalled one pilot. “I just couldn’t believe how the Catalina held together under the stresses of the sudden drops and lifts. You virtually lost control of the airplane. It was very rough indeed.”

In addition to wrestling their planes through the turbulence, the pilots were periodically blinded by brilliant flashes of lightning. Often they were forced to turn the controls over to the copilot until their vision improved.

When the planes finally burst from the storm into clear skies, the contrast was almost startling: stars shimmered overhead, and the air felt as smooth as velvet. With the target still several hours away, some of the crewmen climbed into bunks to “
snatch a nap like children in kindergarten
.” They were lulled to sleep in minutes as the Catalinas droned slowly through the night.

When the seaplanes at last approached the northern tip of New Britain, the crews found Simpson Harbor obscured. A layer of scattered clouds was not unusual, but on this January night the volcano Tavurvur was active, spewing a thick cloud of vapor over the anchorage. As the Catalinas descended to six thousand feet, the “bomb-aimers” moved forward to the optical sights mounted in each bow. Down below, searchlight beams crisscrossed the night sky. Several antiaircraft batteries manned by the Maizaru 2nd Special Naval Landing Force, who specialized in the rapid deployment of “high-angle” 80mm guns, opened fire on the intruders. Ships in the harbor joined in, firing blindly through the clouds.

Private 1st Class Akiyoshi Hisaeda, a member of the 55th Division field hospital, was aboard the troop transport
Venice Maru
when the Catalinas
attacked. “Battle exchanged for about one hour between several enemy machines and our navy and army,” he noted that night in his diary. “Our forces sustained at least one casualty.”

Whatever damage Hisaeda referred to was evidently the result of sheer luck. The Australian bombardiers, unable to locate targets in the night, simply aimed their bombs at the antiaircraft fire coming up from below. Frustrated by the poor visibility, the Catalina crews reported only “probable hits” when they returned to Port Moresby.

Due to all the blind shooting, the Japanese caused more harm to themselves than did the attackers. Friendly fire from shipboard antiaircraft guns swept across the plateau south of Simpson Harbor, hitting elements of the South Seas Force. The 55th Transportation Company’s bivouac area suffered damage and casualties, according to Lt. Col. Toshiharu Sakigawa, who described his men as “quite disturbed” by the incident.

Two nights later the Catalinas were back over Simpson Harbor, but this time only three aircraft participated in the raid. The third flying boat, piloted by Flt. Lt. Terence L. Duigan, arrived over the target approximately an hour behind the first two. He observed one ship “blazing fiercely” near the northwestern shore of Simpson Harbor and another burning in the middle of the anchorage. When the crews returned to Port Moresby, one reported a possible hit on an “aircraft carrier,” but in reality the Catalinas had caused only minor damage.

Although neither of the first two attacks had caused much damage, the Australians believed they had done some harm to the Japanese. More importantly, all planes had returned safely, and the flyboys were hailed as heroes. “
RAAF Shocks Japs
,” proclaimed the
Sydney Sun
, which added in bold type: “In the two raids on Rabaul, it is now believed that four Jap troopships have been rendered useless and others damaged.”

The accompanying story consisted mostly of propaganda, but it served as a tonic for a nation already tired of gloomy war news. The resounding media coverage also spurred the RAAF, which continued to attack Rabaul every second night. The next raid was conducted by four Catalinas on the night of January 28, but due to poor visibility the results were unobserved. Two nights later, Squadron Leader Price led five Catalinas back to Simpson Harbor and claimed one hit on a ship. The Australians reported intense antiaircraft fire after the mission, an indication that heavy batteries manned by the South Seas Force were now in place.

The first week of raids did achieve some damage, as confirmed in a postwar report by the Imperial Navy: “
Enemy aircraft frequently invaded
the skies over the Rabaul anchorage, bombing and strafing, but our ships put up fierce resistance and repulsed them. Three enemy planes were shot down. Damage suffered—one dead, fifteen injured, and minor damages to two transports.” A separate report submitted by the Imperial Army listed four dead and fifteen wounded among units of the South Seas Force.

But the claim by the Japanese that three Australian planes were shot down in late January was pure invention. No Catalinas were lost over Rabaul during the early raids, partly due to the ineffectiveness of the few shore-based antiaircraft guns, and also because there were no Japanese fighters to oppose the flying boats. Vice Admiral Nagumo had ordered
Akagi
and
Kaga
back to Truk as soon as Rabaul was secured, leaving only a few floatplanes for aviation support.

WITHIN HOURS of the invasion, the Imperial Navy’s 4th Construction Detachment, assisted by an army construction battalion, commenced repairs to the runway at Lakunai airdrome. That same afternoon, Cmdr. Ryutaro Yamanaka of the land-based Chitose Air Group arrived at Rabaul from the Marshall Islands to inspect Lakunai and “
encourage the army engineer troops
on the scene.” Such coordination between the two services was uncommon, but it got results. By the end of the month, the airdrome was completely repaired.

Rabaul’s first land-based fighters, formerly assigned to the Tainan Air Group, were delivered by the aircraft transporter
Kasuga Maru
a few days after Yamanaka’s visit. Less than a week later, on January 31, a contingent of fifteen fighters of the Chitose Air Group was transferred from the Marshalls.

The first fighters sent to Rabaul were not the highly regarded Zeros but obsolescent Mitsubishi A5M4s, known to the Japanese as Type 96 carrier fighters. With their fixed landing gear, open cockpit, and teardrop wheel covers, the planes resembled something from a Disney cartoon. They were also significantly slower than the Zero, and with only two 7.7mm machine guns in the nose, did not pack much firepower. However, the Type 96’s gnatlike maneuverability was superb.

Although not designed or equipped for night combat, the new arrivals teamed up with the searchlight crews to challenge the Catalinas’
nocturnal raids. The first combat occurred on the night of February 3, when two of the five Catalinas that attacked shipping in Simpson Harbor were caught in the beams of the powerful searchlights. One got out of trouble by diving through the volcanic steam billowing from Tavurvur, but the other, piloted by Flt. Lt. Godfrey E. Hemsworth, was held firmly by the searchlights.