Fortress Rabaul (13 page)

But to attain such impressive performance, the engineers had spurned critical components known to be essential for survivability in combat. To save weight, no armor plate was installed for crew protection. The engineers also chose to forego self-sealing liners in the fuel tanks, which were integrated within the main wing. The only thing separating hundreds of gallons of high-octane gasoline from enemy bullets was a few millimeters of aluminum skin.

Author-historian Osamu Tagaya, a renowned expert on Japanese aviation units of World War II, described the rationale behind the Type 1’s development:

The use of conventional fuel tanks, fully internalized within the airframe, would have left room for the installation of protective measures, but would also have reduced fuel capacity below requirements. The navy, in its collective wisdom, would not accept any shortfall in range or performance, and appeared quite willing to take the risks inherent in the design.

This was mute testimony to the extent to which a tactical doctrine favoring attack at all costs pervaded the Imperial Navy. The IJN was loath to accept the 300-kilogram weight penalty which the installation of rubber ply protection for the fuel tanks entailed. Ever focused on performance and range in pursuit of the offensive, navy airmen refused to give up that weight in bombs or fuel in exchange for a feature which many … considered nonessential.

The “land-attackers,” as the airmen called themselves, knew their planes had an Achilles heel. Yet they possessed supreme confidence in the Type 1, which had been unstoppable during the early campaigns over China, the Philippines, and the Netherlands East Indies. History, they believed, was on their side.

FOR THE FIRST few days out of Fiji, Task Force 11 benefited from long-range forward observation provided by a squadron of B-17s. The 14th Reconnaissance Squadron, pieced together from three different units in Hawaii, had been assigned temporarily to the U.S. Navy under Vice Admiral Leary. Led by twenty-eight-year-old Maj. Richard H. Carmichael, a square-jawed West Pointer with a dazzling smile, the squadron flew lengthy patrol sectors that extended seven hundred miles from Nandi airfield in the Fijis.

Aboard
Lexington
, Vice Admiral Brown and his staff completed their strike planning. The task force would steam toward Rabaul for four days, keeping well clear of islands to avoid detection, and launch a strike on the morning of February 21. “
Plentiful shipping targets
were expected,” wrote Capt. Frederick C. Sherman, commanding officer of the carrier. “We planned a surprise attack from north of the Solomons, with the planes approaching Rabaul over the intervening island of New Ireland and a simultaneous cruiser bombardment of the ships in the harbor.”

The ambitious plans also called for Carmichael’s B-17s to hit Rabaul in coordination with the navy strike. The heavy bombers were scheduled to arrive at Townsville, Australia, on February 19, then launch the following night for Rabaul. If all went well, they would arrive over the target at dawn on the twenty-first, the same time as
Lexington’s
aircraft. After refueling
at Port Moresby, the Fortresses would return to Townsville, completing a mission of approximately 2,300 miles with an elapsed time of eighteen hours.

Long before anyone was in position to attack, however, the carefully laid plans began to unravel. Japanese listening posts intercepted segments of the abnormally high message traffic between admirals King, Brown, and Leary, enabling Imperial General Headquarters to issue alerts even before the task force departed from Fiji. The tension went up another notch on the afternoon of February 19, when an outpost southwest of Truk warned of enemy destroyers in the vicinity. Later it was determined to be a false alarm, but the warning prompted Rear Admiral Goto to order the Yokohama Air Group to prepare for an important mission. The flying boats would go out early the next morning with a single purpose: find the American task force.

AT DAWN ON February 20, three enormous Kawanishi H6Ks lifted majestically from the surface of Simpson Harbor and climbed eastward. The flying boats, each with a crew of ten, took slightly different headings to reach their assigned fifteen-degree sectors. For the first several hours the hunt came up empty. But just as the seaplane piloted by Lt. j.g.Noboru Sakai approached the outer turn point, a crewmember spotted the task force. At 1030 hours, Sakai radioed headquarters with the electrifying news that an enemy aircraft carrier and its screening force were 460 miles northeast of New Britain.

Sakai and his crew were undoubtedly ecstatic about their accomplishment, but they had little time to congratulate themselves. High atop the
Lexington’s
superstructure, a large, box-shaped antenna had already detected pulses of invisible energy reflected from the Japanese flying boat. The antenna was one of several integrated components that made up the carrier’s first-generation CXAM search radar, which fed the electronic data to a primitive scope inside the carrier’s combat information center. A trained operator called out the particulars to another man standing at an illuminated plotting board: unidentified contact, thirty-five miles, bearing one-eight-zero. Word of the “bogey” was passed by sound-powered telephones to the bridge, whereupon Captain Sherman ordered the launch of the ready CAP, or combat air patrol.

On the wooden flight deck, six gray-camouflaged Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighters sat with their engines idling, ready for immediate launch.
The cloth-helmeted pilots were guided by deck handlers—sailors wearing yellow jerseys—who used specialized sign language to direct the pilots into position. The deck canted slightly as the 888-foot-long
Lexington
turned into the prevailing wind, and when her course was steady a green light illuminated on the superstructure. This was the signal for the yellow-shirted Flight Deck Officer to throw a quick salute to the first pilot in line; he then leaned toward the carrier’s bow, extended his right arm, and pointed forward with a flourish.

Revving his engine at full power, the first pilot released his brakes. The stubby gray fighter accelerated down the deck and was quickly airborne, its wings waggling slightly as the pilot manually cranked up the wheels. One by one the remaining Wildcats followed, forming into two-plane sections as the lead pilots checked in by radio: the 1st Division leader (Lt. Cmdr. John S. “Jimmy” Thach), second section leader (Lt. Edward H. “Butch” O’Hare), and third section leader (Lt. j.g. Onia B. “Burt” Stanley), reported their fighters up and ready.

In
Lexington’s
darkened combat information center, the fighter director officer scanned the graphics written on the plotting board and made a quick decision. Communicating with the fighters by radio, Lt. Frank F. “Red” Gill vectored Thach’s section southward to investigate the bogey while holding the other four fighters in reserve over the task force.

Less than thirty minutes after the Kawanishi flying boat was detected by radar, the stage was set for
Lexington’s
first encounter with enemy aircraft.

CHAPTER 9

Medal of Honor: Edward H. “Butch” O’Hare

T
HIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD
Jimmy Thach, commanding officer of Fighting Squadron 3 aboard the
Lexington
, had long been regarded as one of the navy’s best pilots. Nicknamed for his likeness to an older brother who’d preceded him at the Naval Academy, Thach was the Old Man personified, with deep-set eyes, drooping cheeks, and a receding hairline. But behind the hushpuppy face was a true gunnery expert. Thach had learned to shoot as a boy in Arkansas; and later, after graduating from the Naval Academy, he accumulated more than three thousand hours in all types of aircraft, including assignments as a test pilot and flight instructor.

The morning of February 20 found Thach and Ens. Edward R. “Doc” Sellstrom Jr., his wingman, thirty-five miles southwest of the
Lexington
on the latest heading provided by the fighter director officer. Applying a combination of pilot’s instinct and the information from the CXAM radar, “Red” Gill steered the two fighters to intercept an unidentified contact. It was not a simple task. The Japanese pilot was being cagey, using cumulous clouds, thick with rain, as hiding places.

But Lieutenant Sakai was merely prolonging the inevitable. The CXAM radar could “see” his enormous flying boat through the clouds, making it only a matter of time before the Wildcats were upon him.

Based on Thach’s recollection, Sakai may have spotted the fighters first.

He flew into the clouds and we followed, hoping he’d come out on the same course on the other side. But he was a smart Jap. He turned inside the cloud, and when we came out, the air was vacant. We went back into the cloud, flying on instruments. There was a small opening in the cloud, and as I came into it, I looked down and not more than a thousand feet below was a huge wing with a red disc. It was my first sight of an enemy aircraft as close as that, and it nearly scared me to death.

Thus began a deadly game of Wildcat-and-mouse, except that the mouse was enormous and well armed. Knowing he could not outmaneuver the fighters, Sakai attempted to evade them by descending through the base of the cloud. But the Kawanishi was simply too massive to escape unnoticed. Bursting out of the clouds at 1,500 feet, Sakai had only one option available: he had to run.

Unlike the previous adversaries faced by the Yokohama airmen (the underpowered Wirraways of 24 Squadron), the Wildcats with their 1,200-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines had plenty of speed. They also had the immeasurable advantage of altitude. Perched above and behind the big flying boat, Thach and Sellstrom waited until it was well out in the open before commencing their first gunnery run.

After years of practice, Thach’s first firing run was flawless. The heavy slugs from his four .50-caliber machine guns punched easily through the Kawanishi’s broad parasol wing, causing plumes of vaporized gasoline to spew from numerous holes in the fuel tanks. Ignited by a glowing tracer or an incendiary round, the volatile mist suddenly erupted in brilliant sheets of flame. Sakai and his men were doomed.

Thach watched as several objects tumbled from the plane, thinking at first that they were bodies. They turned out to be eight small bombs. “I could see the Japs in the forward part of the plane stand up, but they seemed to make no attempt to jump,” Thach recalled. “The plane was almost completely engulfed in flames, and it hit the water with a huge explosion.”

Sakai’s crew perished at twelve minutes past eleven. Miles away, observing a column of black smoke on the horizon,
Lexington’s
sailors let out a cheer. Fighting Squadron 3 had scored its first victory.

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, the CXAM radar detected another bogey, this time north of the task force. Lieutenant Gill vectored Burt Stanley and his wingman, Ens. Leon M. Haynes, toward the snooper and ordered them to “buster,” to which they shoved their throttles to maximum power. A short time later Haynes spied the target, another silvery Kawanishi at six thousand feet. He signaled to Stanley, who in turn radioed the ship with a tally-ho.

In his excitement, Stanley missed the master gun switch while running through the precombat checklist, and nothing happened when he squeezed the trigger. After toggling the switch, he fired three bursts into the massive wing of the Japanese plane. Haynes followed, also registering solid hits.

The flying boat, piloted by WO Kiyoshi Hayashi, began to burn. Slowly at first, then more steeply, it pitched over and fell toward the ocean, leaving a trail of greasy black smoke to mark the path of its mortal plunge. The spectacular explosion when it hit the surface at 1202 was again witnessed by
Lexington’s
crew.

Expending just a few hundred rounds of ammunition, Fighting Squadron 3 had achieved two indisputable victories. On the opposite side of the ledger, twenty Japanese airmen were dead.

IN THE CHINATOWN building that served as his headquarters, Rear Admiral Goto deliberated over the sighting report received from Sakai’s patrol plane. There had been no collaborating report since the initial message, nor was any amplifying word transmitted by the other two flying boats; but Goto had already made up his mind. Sakai’s information placed the American task force approximately five hours’ flying time from Rabaul, well within range of the 4th Air Group’s land attack aircraft. Goto was determined to destroy the approaching force but delayed the order to attack in the hopes of learning more from the patrol planes. The radio remained silent. At 1310, with nothing else to go on, Goto gave the order for the 4th Air Group to attack the American ships.