Fortress Rabaul (46 page)

AT TRUK, Admiral Yamamoto was probably not in a celebratory mood as he contemplated the end of 1942. Having opened the year with a string of brilliant victories, his naval forces were reeling. The concerns shared by many Japanese were expressed by Yamamoto’s right-hand man, Vice Admiral Ugaki, in his diary. “The year 1942 is going to pass tonight,” he wrote. “How brilliant was the first-stage operation up to April! And what miserable setbacks since Midway in June! The invasions of Hawaii, Fiji, Samoa, and New Caledonia, [the] liberation of India and destruction of the British Far Eastern Fleet have all scattered like dreams. Meanwhile, not to speak of capturing Port Moresby, but the recovery of Guadalcanal … turned out to be impossible.”

The Allies were unaware of just how devastating the failed operations had been for the Japanese. Within days, Yamamoto would order KE Operation, a naval mission to evacuate the remnants of the units on Guadalcanal by warship. Ultimately some thirteen thousand emaciated troops would be rescued, but by the time the operation concluded in early February 1943, the Japanese had left nineteen thousand dead on Guadalcanal. Another thousand, mostly laborers, had been captured.

In terms of deprivation, New Guinea was even worse. Between late July and mid-August 1942, the Japanese had landed more than twelve thousand troops in the Buna area for the push across the Owen Stanley Mountains. When that effort was thwarted on the Kokoda Trail in September, the
starving survivors gradually withdrew to a narrow defensive pocket near Buna. Another five thousand reinforcements were delivered from Rabaul, but the persistent Allied air attacks on the convoys eventually forced the Japanese to use submarines for delivering supplies.

As cargo vessels, the subs were completely inadequate. Although twenty tons of supplies were delivered on the nights of December 19 and 20, the Seventeenth Army chief of staff appealed for more food just four days later. The soldiers, he wrote, were “only keeping themselves alive by eating tree buds, coconuts, and seaweed.” Later it was discovered that some Japanese had resorted to cannibalism.

The failed Buna campaign cost the lives of approximately twelve thousand men, including that of Major General Horii. On November 19, while scouting the coastline of New Guinea in a native canoe, he and two staff officers were swept out to sea by a sudden squall. The canoe swamped, drowning the conqueror of Rabaul and his chief of staff.

And yet, despite the costly setbacks at Buna and Guadalcanal, the Japanese were still arguably stronger than the Allies in the Southwest Pacific. The Imperial Navy completed its new airdromes on Bougainville and New Georgia, and in mid-December, Eighteenth Army units landed at Madang and Wewak on the north coast of New Guinea. Construction battalions built a network of airdromes for Imperial Army air regiments, thus reinforcing the western flank of Rabaul. For every advance by the Allies, the Japanese put up additional roadblocks.

EVIDENCE THAT the Japanese still held the advantage was photographed at Rabaul on December 30. No less than twenty-one warships occupied the anchorages, along with approximately seventy merchant vessels totaling an estimated three hundred thousand tons. “
When the Jap accumulates that much tonnage
,” wrote General Kenney on the first day of 1943, “it means trouble for me shortly.”

It is likely that Kenney also received Ultra intercepts revealing enemy plans for the deployment of a vital convoy to New Guinea. (A term first coined by the British, “Ultra” became the catch-all name for message intercepts in World War II. The highest security classification then available was Most Secret, but message decoding was considered even more specialized, or
ultra
-secret.) Separately, intelligence analysts noted a sharp increase in enemy air patrols over Lae and the Huon Gulf, a strong indicator of the
convoy’s intended destination. Hoping to “
break the movement up at the source
,” Kenney told Walker to plan an all-out attack against Simpson Harbor. Only essential reconnaissance flights were to be conducted during the next few days so that the heavy bomb groups could perform much-needed maintenance.

According to Kenney’s memoirs, Walker was instructed to schedule the attack for January 5, at dawn. Two days prior to the mission, Walker approached Kenney to request a change: he wanted to hit Rabaul at midday instead.

Walker was evidently worried about the participation of the 90th Bomb Group, a logical concern considering the group’s string of bad luck, particularly during night operations. Recently, the group had implemented a program of rotating one squadron to Port Moresby for a week at a time while the other three squadrons operated from Iron Range. In order for the Australia-based Liberators to hit Rabaul at dawn, they would have to take off in the middle of the night and then rendezvous with the participants from Port Moresby—a daunting and potentially hazardous maneuver to attempt in the darkness. Walker wanted to delay the takeoff until after daybreak, reasoning that a noon attack would enable better concentration of defensive firepower and also yield a tighter bombardment pattern. Having spent his whole career advocating these tactics, Walker was anxious to implement them.

But Kenney was not persuaded. Convinced that the “Nip fighters” would fiercely contest the bombers at midday and ruin their accuracy, he told Walker to stick with the original plan. Kenney explained that he “would rather have the bombers not in formation for a dawn attack than in formation for a show at noon.”

If Kenney’s memoirs are accurate, Walker received clear orders, but he did not follow them. Something even stronger than the fundamentals of duty and honor—perhaps stubbornness, or deeply rooted convictions, or just the fact that he was tired of losing arguments to Kenney—compelled Walker to defy his boss. He delayed the takeoff time, but did not inform Kenney. Moreover, when the strike plan was distributed to the participants the day prior to the mission, the most successful heavy bombing squadron in the theater was not included in “the show.” Despite the fact that Kenney had ordered “
a full-scale bomber attack
,” his favorite squadron was excluded from the mission.

For more than sixty-five years, members of the 63rd Bomb Squadron have wondered why.

The whole truth will probably never be uncovered, but pilot Jim Dieffenderfer, a peripheral observer during the planning stages of the mission, later shared some compelling insight. When Walker revealed his intention to bomb Rabaul at midday, Bill Benn objected. “
You’re going to lose two airplanes
,” he advised Walker. “You shouldn’t try going into Rabaul at high noon. It’s best to keep bombing it at night.”

There can be little doubt that Walker resented the major’s critical opinion, especially after losing the dispute over bomb fuses. Benn represented the opposition, with direct support from Kenney. Dieffenderfer believes that Walker reacted personally, retaliating in the only way he could, by saying, “
Fine, we just won’t take your squadron
,” or words to that effect.

Walker’s frustration can only be surmised, but he was obviously aware that a number of recent disputes had not gone his way. The fact that Bill Benn was Kenney’s protégé probably did not matter any longer. Walker had already made up his mind to defy Kenney by attacking Rabaul at midday, and faced little additional risk in denying Kenney’s favorite squadron a role in the mission. Walker may have also surmised that his tenure as head of V Bomber Command was growing short. If so, the forthcoming mission represented his last opportunity to showcase the strategies he had championed for years. Thus, his decision to violate orders would have been a relatively easy one. As the old saying goes, it’s easier to seek forgiveness than permission.

Whatever was said between Walker and Benn, the animosity carried over to the afternoon of January 4. Although Benn’s squadron was not going to participate in the mission, he attended the briefing conducted by Walker. So did Jim Dieffenderfer, who later recalled that Benn did not sit quietly.

I don’t think Benn and Walker got along very well. I sat in on the briefing before that mission with Benn, who had somehow gotten word that our squadron wasn’t going. During the briefing, Walker gave the time that the planes would arrive at such-and-such a place. Benn looked in his little notebook and said, “General, you’re going to be about eight minutes early.” Walker got his navigator and said, “Go check that out.” The navigator came back after a few minutes and said, “Sir, he’s right; we were a little bit off.” How Benn knew that, I don’t know. But he also knew that Walker wasn’t supposed to go on the mission.

The crews scheduled to fly reacted to Walker’s plan with a buzz of consternation. Frederick Wesche III of the 64th Bomb Squadron recalled: “
When this was announced
[that the attack] was going to be done in broad daylight at noontime, as a matter of fact at low altitude, something like 5,000 feet over the most heavily defended target in the Pacific … most of us went away shaking our heads. Many of us believed that we wouldn’t come back from it.”

The absence of the 63rd Bomb Squadron meant that Walker could not launch the total effort Kenney had asked for. To further complicate matters, bad weather in Australia interfered with the plan. The B-24s at Iron Range were unable to take off due to heavy rain, leaving Walker with only the aircraft at Port Moresby: six Liberators and six Fortresses. Twelve bombers were not nearly enough for him to adequately prove the tactics he espoused, but the mission got underway as planned on the morning of January 5, 1943.

Independent of the main strike, three B-17s took off at dawn to attack Lakunai airdrome with the intention of suppressing enemy fighters. One Fortress aborted because of mechanical trouble, but the other two reached Rabaul at approximately 0900. Finding it socked in by a low overcast, they loitered overhead for approximately thirty minutes and conducted three dry runs without dropping their bombs. The delay provided ample time for a dozen A6M3 Hamps of Air Group 582 to take off and climb toward the two bombers.

At 0930 the Fortresses pickled their bombs in the vicinity of Vunakanau. Curiously, the crews reported interception by “Me-109s,” though there were no German fighters in the region. The crewmen were probably seeing their first Nakajima Ki-43 Oscars of the Japanese Army Air Force, which strongly resembled Zeros in appearance as well as agility. The primary difference was the Oscar’s limited armament: a pair of 12.7mm (.50-caliber) machine guns mounted in the engine cowling.

A patrol of Oscars from the 2nd
Chutai
, 11th Flying Regiment, which had arrived at Rabaul only three weeks earlier, intercepted the B-17s first. Soon after the action got underway, one fighter was shot down in full view of everyone on the ground. According to the diary of an unnamed soldier
embarked on
Clyde Maru
, the Japanese were “
infuriated
” by the sight.

Subsequently a swarm of army and navy fighters ganged up on the Fortress flown by Capt. Jean A. Jack, 403rd Bomb Squadron. They attacked head-on, knocking the B-17’s ball turret out of commission on the first pass. A sharp-shooting Zero pilot also severely damaged the left wing. His bullets and cannon fire disabled the outboard engine and tore through the main spar, damaging the engine controls and oil cooler. The left fuel tank was punctured, and holes appeared in the side of the radio compartment. Jack was unable to feather the damaged engine, which vibrated badly as the crew fought off persistent fighter attacks for thirty minutes. Finally, a hundred miles south of Rabaul, the Japanese broke off their pursuit.

Realizing that his shot-up Fortress would never make it to Port Moresby, Jack headed southwest and searched for signs of habitation among the small islands off New Guinea. Near the D’Entrecasteaux Islands he spotted an islet with native huts visible near the beach and safely ditched the Fortress just offshore.

THE MAIN STRIKE got underway at approximately 0800 as crews manned their bombers and commenced preflight routines. Walker, listed officially as the command pilot, was a passenger aboard a B-17F named
San Antonio Rose
, piloted by Maj. Allan Lindbergh, commanding officer of the 64th Bomb Squadron. Also riding as an observer was Maj. Jack W. Bleasdale, executive officer of the 43rd Bomb Group. With two passengers aboard in addition to her regular crew,
Rose
lifted off from Jackson airdrome at 0848, followed by the rest of the assigned aircraft.

By the time the raiders neared Rabaul some three hours later, the undercast had cleared. Conditions for bombing were ideal, but during the long flight the bombers had become separated into two distinct groups, diminishing their potential strength. The first to reach the target were the Liberators. Led by Maj. Philip J. Kuhl, commanding officer of the 319th Bomb Squadron, the six B-24s approached Simpson Harbor precisely at noon. Crewmen could clearly see enemy aircraft scrambling from the airdromes down below, but aside from bursts of antiaircraft fire, there was little interference as the bombardiers selected individual targets and initiated their bomb runs at eight thousand feet.

From the air, the results of the attack looked impressive. Lieutenant William L. Whitacre, a pilot in the 319th, reported “
at least three ships
hit in the harbor and left burning.” In another Liberator, the bombardier claimed to have definitely sunk a ten-thousand-ton merchant vessel.

Within minutes, however, the Liberator crews encountered a series of aggressive frontal attacks by approximately fifteen interceptors. Again there were Oscars mixed in with Imperial Navy
Rei-sen
, but all enemy fighters were reported as “Zeros” due to the Americans’ unfamiliarity with the Ki-43. Several B-24s received minor damage from gunfire and antiaircraft shells, although no casualties were reported among the crews. In return, gunners aboard the Liberators claimed two fighters destroyed, one of which may have been Sgt. Maj. Haruo Takagaki, a veteran of the China campaign with fifteen victories. His Ki-43 fell in flames, but unlike the navy pilots who scorned parachutes out of principle, Takagaki wore one that day and successfully bailed out.