Fortress Rabaul (24 page)

Wild Eagles

W
HILE NEW AMERICAN
squadrons were slowly being established in Australia, the first weeks of April were an important time for Japanese units at Rabaul. The most notable event was a major restructuring of the Imperial Navy on April 1, highlighted by the creation of several new air groups. Rear Admiral Goto’s 24th Air Flotilla was transferred to the Central Pacific and replaced by the 25th Air Flotilla, led by mustachioed, aristocratic-looking Rear Adm. Sadayoshi Yamada. A naval aviator for twenty-five years, Yamada had commanded the aircraft carriers
Soryu
and
Kaga
earlier in his illustrious career. His new assignment was accompanied by some welcome news: the Tainan Air Group, one of the Imperial Navy’s most famous fighter units, would soon be joining his forces at Rabaul.

Organized six months earlier on Formosa (present day Taiwan), which the Japanese called Tainan during World War II, the air group had already seen extensive combat. During the first weeks of the Southern Offensive, they flew missions over the Philippines; then in January the group moved south to Balikpapan for operations over the Malay Peninsula. Only a few weeks later, as the Southern Offensive progressed rapidly into the Netherlands East Indies, the group moved again—this time to the fabled island of Bali. When orders to transfer into the 25th Air Flotilla came at the beginning of April, the pilots and ground personnel boarded the cargo liner
Komaki Maru
for the 2,500-mile voyage to Rabaul.

Considering the scope of operations in the Southeast Area, the addition of the elite fighter group was certain to generate publicity for Yamada’s new flotilla. When it came to dramatizing air battles or the achievements of airmen, Japanese periodicals were little different from those in the West, and Rabaul even had its own cadre of staff correspondents attached to naval headquarters. Hardly a day went by without a newspaper story about the latest exploits of the “Navy Wild Eagles.” Coined early in the war, the term became a popular literary device, not unlike the use of “Leathernecks” to describe American marines. Naval aviators were referred to as umiwashi (sea eagles) and army airmen as rikuwashi (land eagles), but the papers nearly always called them “
wild eagles
,” evidently to maximize the dramatic impact of the articles.

On paper, Yamada’s new flotilla was impressive. The Tainan Air Group (forty-five Type 0 fighters), 1st Air Group (twenty-seven Type 96 land attack aircraft), and 4th Air Group (reformed as a land attack group with thirty-six Type 1s), constituted the backbone of the combat force, while the Yokohama Air Group (twelve Type 97 flying boats) provided long-range reconnaissance and patrols. A separate command, the Special Duty Force, utilized the aircraft transporter
Mogamigawa Maru
to move planes between Rabaul and the advance bases.

At the beginning of April, however, the 25th Air Flotilla’s strength was nowhere near prescribed levels. Lakunai airdrome housed just fourteen Zeros and eleven obsolescent Type 96 fighters, several of which needed repairs. The
rikko
units actually possessed only sixteen Type 1s (about half needing repair) and nine aging Type 96 bombers at Vunakanau; and the Yokohama Air Group had eight serviceable flying boats in Simpson Harbor. Fighter strength improved when the aircraft transporter
Goshu
Maru
delivered twelve Zeros on April 7, and
Kasuga Maru
arrived five days later with another twenty-four Zeros. The aircraft and pilots from the fighter component of the old 4th Air Group, which was no longer a composite unit, were absorbed into the Tainan Air Group while the latter was en route from Bali.

When
Komaki Maru
docked at Rabaul after two weeks at sea, many of the air group personnel were sick. The idea of being a fighter pilot no longer seemed glamorous to FPO 2nd Class Saburo Sakai, who had experienced a miserable voyage.

More than eighty of us were jammed into the stinking vessel, which crawled sluggishly through the water at twelve knots. For protection we were given only one small 1,000-ton sub chaser… .

The ship creaked and groaned incessantly as it wallowed along in its zigzag pattern. Every time we passed the wash of the escorting sub chaser we heeled over, rolling drunkenly. Inside the vessel conditions were torturous. The heat was almost unbearable; I did not spend a single dry day during the entire two weeks. Sweat poured from our bodies in the humid and sultry holds. The smell of paint was gagging, and every single pilot in my hold became violently ill… .

At last the ship chugged its way into Rabaul Harbor, the main port of New Britain. With a gasp of relief I staggered from below decks to the pier. I could not believe what I saw. If Bali had been a paradise, then Rabaul was plucked from the very depths of hell itself. There was a narrow and dusty airstrip which was to serve our group. It was the worst airfield I had ever seen anywhere. Immediately behind this wretched runway a ghastly volcano loomed 700 feet into the air. Every few minutes the ground trembled and the volcano groaned deeply, then hurled out stones and thick, choking smoke. Behind the volcano stood pallid mountains stripped of all their trees and foliage.

Docking at the Government Wharf on April 16, 1942,
Komaki
Maru
disembarked its weary passengers. Sakai, whose widely published autobiography later made him the most famous pilot in the Imperial Navy, was seriously ill with malaria or dengue fever when he arrived. He remembered the ship as a rusty old bucket, but
Komaki Maru
was actually a large, modern vessel compared to most Japanese merchantmen of the day. Launched in 1933 by the Kokusai Line, the 8,500-ton ship featured several first-class cabins and had called at American ports before the war. But upon its transfer into the Imperial Navy, it received substandard maintenance. After more than a year of South Seas operations with little upkeep, the ship seemed “decrepit” to Sakai.

No matter,
Komaki Maru
had safely delivered one of the navy’s crack fighter units to Rabaul. When the next Allied attack occurred, the Tainan Air Group would be ready.

THE MORNING OF April 18 found a large work party of Australian POWs at the Government Wharf, where they labored to unload cargo from the newly arrived
Komaki Maru
. The ship carried an extensive list of hazardous material, including high-octane aviation fuel, bombs, ammunition, and aircraft parts for the Tainan Air Group. Shortly before noon the prisoners were ordered ashore. Guards marched them to a grassy spot, where they sat for a simple meal of rice.

The timing of the break could not have been more advantageous. Without warning, two B-26s appeared over the rim of the caldera to the southwest. The Marauders stayed low, hugging the contours of Tunnel Hill as they raced toward Simpson Harbor at 250 miles per hour. The B-26 flown by 1st Lt. Richard W. Robinson veered to the right, heading toward Lakunai airdrome; the other, piloted by 1st Lieutenant George F. Kahle, Jr., made straight for the Government Wharf and
Komaki Maru
.

In full view of the prisoners and hundreds of Japanese, four 500-pound bombs detached from the bomb bay of the low-level Marauder. The first exploded in the water just ahead of the ship’s bow; the next two were direct hits, one on the forward main deck, the other aft; and the fourth landed just astern of the vessel. The
Komaki Maru
shuddered under the impact of the two hits, which ignited the cargo of aviation fuel. “
A few seconds later
,” recalled an Australian eyewitness, “the ship was an inferno and the roar of the flames almost drowned the screams of the Japanese trapped aboard.”

Overhead, Kahle closed his bomb bay doors and accelerated from the target area. Across the harbor, Robinson scattered 100-pounders on the dispersal area of Lakunai airdrome while his gunners strafed targets of opportunity, including a moored Kawanishi flying boat. The sky all around the two Marauders erupted with angry black bursts from shore emplacements, but to no effect. As a Japanese soldier later noted: “
Our antiaircraft guns
and machine guns fired fiercely but were unable to score.”

Two patrolling Zeros also gave chase, though their attempt was in vain. The B-26s not only boasted the most powerful radial engines available but were fitted with four-blade propellers, giving them a slight speed advantage that even the Zero pilots had to grudgingly acknowledge. South of Rabaul, however, a third Marauder appeared from the opposite direction, flying
toward
Rabaul about a thousand feet below the Zeros. Piloted by 1st Lt. William A. Garnett, commanding officer of the 33rd Bombardment
Squadron, the B-26 had taken off almost an hour behind schedule due to complications at Port Moresby.

Recently selected for promotion to captain, Bill Garnett was popular with his men and highly regarded as an administrator. But he did not fly often, nor did he currently have his own bomber or even a regular crew. A few weeks earlier, he had wrecked his B-26 (and a citizen’s house) during a landing mishap in Australia. Tapped to lead the Rabaul mission, Garnett borrowed a plane and then pieced together a crew. Some of the men had plenty of flight experience, including the radio operator, thirty-one-year-old Tech. Sgt. Theron K. Lutz of New Jersey. Others were rookies. Corporal Sanger E. Reed, a nineteen-year-old mechanic, had volunteered for the mission—his first combat sortie—and served as Garnett’s engineer/tail gunner. The crew’s trouble began early. As the six Marauders parked at Port Moresby went through start-up procedures on the morning of April 18, Garnett could not get either engine running. He flooded the carburetors, and then drained the batteries while cranking the electric starters. Young Reed watched in silence. “
I was the engineer
,” he said, “but in those days a corporal did not make suggestions to captains that were having trouble. You kept your eyes down and didn’t make any noise. He ran the batteries down, so then we had to pull the props through by hand to clear them.”

Because of the delay, Garnett delegated the lead to another pilot, and the rest of the Marauders departed. Finally, after getting an off-duty pilot to start the engines, Garnett and his crew got airborne some fifty minutes late. The original plan called for the formation to take a wide detour around the northern end of New Britain and then turn to attack Rabaul from the northwest. Garnett apparently reasoned that if he approached Rabaul directly from the south, he could erase much of the time deficit. He was unaware that three Marauders had already turned back because of a massive weather system over the Solomon Sea. The two that pressed on, flown by Kahle and Robinson, had not followed the planned detour either. Instead they flew straight to Rabaul, dropped their bombs, and were racing for home when Garnett approached them from the opposite direction.

Kahle and Robinson flashed by Garnett, a thousand feet over his head. Fast on their heels came the pursuing Zeros, which subsequently broke away from the retreating Marauders and went after Garnett’s bomber instead. Corporal Reed, manning the .50-caliber machine gun in the tail,
watched the enemy fighters close the gap. “
We couldn’t get away
,” he later recalled. “Garnett tried to dive fast enough to get away from them, but the first plane caught up with us.”

Flying the lead Zero was twenty-four-year-old Lt. j.g. Jun-ichi Sasai, commander of the 2nd
Chutai
in the Tainan Air Group. The son of a navy captain, he was a rising star in the Imperial Navy and had earned the nickname “Gamecock” because of his determination. Now, with two victories already to his credit, he approached Garnett’s bomber from above and behind. The advantages of speed and altitude favored Sasai, but Sanger Reed, the Marauder’s young tail gunner, fired first. He saw the Zero emit smoke, but Sasai may have simply pushed the throttle to full power, for his Zero had sustained no damage.

In the Plexiglas dorsal turret of the B-26, Cpl. Reese S. Davies aimed his twin “fifties” to the rear and opened fire at Sasai, but after discharging just two rounds, the guns fell silent.

Standing at one of the .30-caliber waist guns in the fuselage, Sergeant Lutz heard the two rounds go off and wondered if the turret guns had jammed. The more plausible explanation is that Davies was killed or incapacitated when Sasai opened fire. There is no doubt that the
chutai
leader’s shooting was accurate: Sasai’s bullets and explosive shells ripped into the right engine of the Marauder, probably puncturing a fuel tank. The engine burst into flames and the fire spread rapidly across the wing, prompting someone in the cockpit to activate the bailout alarm.

Lutz moved aft to warn Reed, who was now shooting at the second Zero. “Lutz was pounding me on the back and telling me to bail out,” Reed remembered. “I realized then that the alarm bell was ringing. I pulled the pin on the gun tripod and pushed it ahead, and started to climb out over it. When I got part way out, I could see that our right engine and wing were on fire. At this time I saw the front escape hatch go flying over my head. So, somebody was trying to get out the front. As I tried to get out, my foot got caught on the tripod, and I couldn’t get back in because of the slipstream. Sergeant Lutz reached down and jerked my foot loose and away I went—my first parachute jump, and my last.”

Reed’s chute popped open and he began to rotate slowly. He caught brief glimpses of the Marauder, almost completly engulfed in flames, as it plummeted into the sea near the shoreline. No one else bailed out except Lutz, who followed Reed by jumping from the tail gun position.

Drifting down into a coconut grove, Reed sustained nothing more serious than a few scratches. While brushing himself off, he looked up and saw Lutz descending toward St. George’s Channel. After hiding his parachute under some bushes, Reed ran to the water’s edge in time to see Lutz swimming around a small promontory toward the opposite shore of a bay. Reed hurried along the beach toward Lutz’s position, but as he rounded the promontory he came face to face with a Japanese patrol. There was no point in trying to evade them, so Reed raised his hands, becoming the first American airman captured in the New Guinea region.