Fortress Rabaul (26 page)

In the meantime, the weary mechanics of 75 Squadron managed to patch up three Kittyhawks sufficiently to return them to service. Their effort, however, was merely symbolic. During the next attempt to intercept a Japanese raid on May 2, nineteen-year-old Sgt. Donald W. Munro was shot down and killed. Later that day, one of the two remaining Kittyhawks was wrecked in a takeoff mishap. The last available fighter flew briefly on May 3, but the pilot was forced to land just seven minutes after takeoff with an overheating engine. With that, 75 Squadron’s defense of Port Moresby was finished.

By the slimmest of margins, the squadron had preserved Australia’s last outpost. For a span of forty-four days, the men of 75 Squadron had faced the Japanese blitz alone. The cost: twenty-two Kittyhawks and the lives of twelve pilots, including the squadron commander. And then, just when the Australians had nothing left to fight with, Buzz Wagner showed up with his Airacobras, almost as if timing his arrival for dramatic effect.

The Airacobras did not by themselves save New Guinea, but there is no question that they made a positive impact on the situation at Port Moresby. Although the Japanese would maintain aerial superiority in the region for months to come, the dark days of terror and frustration, of diving for cover while praying for a miracle, were finally coming to an end.

CHAPTER 15

MO: The Offensive Blunted

D
URING THE FIRST WEEK
of May 1942, the Japanese continued to pound Port Moresby relentlessly in preparation for MO Operation. Losses accumulated on both sides, but no unit struggled more than the 8th Pursuit Group. Six Airacobras were lost during the first four days alone, with all six pilots either killed or missing in action. The shortcomings of the P-39 were plainly evident in combat against Zeros, yet the Americans fought aggressively. They had to. By this time, virtually everyone at Port Moresby knew the Japanese planned to invade.

Major General Horii had scheduled the assault to begin on May 9. His plan called for two battalions of the 144th Infantry Regiment, supported by the 55th Mountain Artillery Battalion, to land southeast of Port Moresby near the site of Kila Kila airdrome. Simultaneously, another battalion would debark northwest of Port Moresby and proceed directly inland toward Seven Mile airdrome. And, in yet another cooperative effort, troops of the 3rd Kure Special Naval Landing Force would encircle and capture the fixed defenses.

But the Japanese were unaware of one huge disadvantage. For months, Allied cryptographers had been steadily breaking down the primary code used by the Imperial Navy for encrypting messages. Known as JN-25, the code was never completely broken (at best, analysts deciphered perhaps fifteen percent of the messages), but by early April the experts knew a
great deal about MO Operation. Analysts concluded correctly that both Port Moresby and the southern Solomons were the intended targets, and by the end of April they knew enough about the plan to formulate a detailed outline.

Much of the analysis was focused on Rabaul. Allied reconnaissance planes revealed that both Lakunai and Vunakanau airdromes were busier than normal, an indication that the 25th Air Flotilla was being strengthened. On May 1, a particularly large influx of land attack aircraft arrived at Vunakanau, including nine Type 1s and eighteen Type 96s. The former were replacements for the 4th Air Group while the latter belonged to the Genzan Air Group, a veteran unit formed in Korea. Renowned for their role in sinking the British warships
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
, the Genzan flyers would be used mainly to support an intense schedule of long-range patrols from Rabaul with their older Mitsubishi G3Ms. Finally, additional Type 0 fighters were parked at Lakunai, having been pulled from the forward bases to augment Rabaul’s fighter strength. This put Lae in a precarious situation, with only six Zeros operational as of May 4.

Aboard his new flagship
Yamato
, anchored in the Inland Sea at Hashirajima, Admiral Yamamoto fretted over the division of forces required by the separate assaults on Port Moresby and Tulagi. He was also troubled by Vice Admiral Inoue’s request for additional carriers. Presently the Close Support Force consisted of four heavy cruisers, one destroyer, and one small flattop,
Shoho
. Displacing less than fourteen thousand tons, she carried only sixteen planes—four of which were old A5Ms. Yamamoto was reluctant to detach any of the fleet carriers from the Mobile Striking Force, but he knew that the Americans would try to stop the offensive with one or more carriers of the Pacific Fleet. Yamamoto’s greatest desire was to draw the American carriers into the open and crush them; therefore he ordered Rear Adm. Chuichi Hara, commander of Carrier Division 5, to support the operation with Japan’s newest fleet carriers,
Zuikaku
and
Shokaku
. Arriving at Truk on April 25, Hara’s two flattops joined a pair of heavy cruisers and six destroyers to become the MO Striking Force, commanded by round-faced Vice Adm. Takeo Takagi.

As April drew to a close, Inoue received the go-ahead to commence the operation. He ordered the transports and warships of the Tulagi invasion force to begin their phase on April 29, and as soon as they departed Simpson Harbor, other ships began loading for the assault on Port Moresby.
Dockside workers, including hundreds of Australian POWs, struggled mightily to load eleven troop carriers and several large warships. Among the latter was the aircraft transporter
Mogamigawa Maru
, which carried the 5th Air Attack Force headquarters, personnel of the 4th Air Group and Tainan Air Group, occupation troops, maintenance supplies, fuel, and all the equipment necessary to establish a new base at Port Moresby. Clearly, Vice Admiral Inoue was confident of a decisive victory.

While the Australian POWs loaded the invasion fleet, Takagi’s powerful striking force steamed south from Truk. On paper, the total forces available to Inoue were impressive: three aircraft carriers, six heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, thirteen destroyers, two large minelayers, thirteen transports, and a host of auxiliary ships. By design, however, the forces were divided among several widely scattered groups.

At Pacific Fleet headquarters in Hawaii, Adm. Chester Nimitz made a determined effort to thwart the operation. He could do little to assist the Australian garrison at Tulagi, but he was certainly capable of interfering with the Japanese fleet in the Coral Sea. On April 15 he sent
Lexington
and Task Force 11, now commanded by Rear Adm. Aubrey Fitch, to join
Yorktown
and Task Force 17 in the Southwest Pacific. The rendezvous was accomplished on May 1 near the New Hebrides, whereupon the warships commenced refueling from a pair of oilers.

In Melbourne, Lieutenant General Brett placed the Northeast Area on high alert in response to the Japanese threat and ordered a significant increase in the number of patrols over the Coral Sea. He also ordered more bombing raids on Rabaul and the advance bases at Lae, Salamaua, and Gasmata. In compliance, the 22nd Bomb Group scheduled a mission against Rabaul for the first day of May. Taking off from Reid River, a new airbase outside Townsville, the Marauders flew up to Port Moresby on April 30 with plans to launch the attack the next morning. But in yet another dismal effort, only three Marauders made it all the way to the target. The rest turned back early due to “a variety of electrical and hydraulic problems.”

The weather over Rabaul was terrible, so the Marauders bombed the alternate target, Gasmata. Returning safely to Port Moresby, the crews were ordered to remain overnight while additional Marauders flew up from Townsville for another crack at Rabaul. Early in the morning on May 2, the B-26s departed hastily to avoid an incoming Japanese raid. One
Marauder did not get off the ground before the enemy attack commenced, but the remaining seven planes headed for New Britain.

The mission leader, 1st Lt. Christian I. Herron of the 33rd Bomb Squadron, had an older and vastly more experienced officer beside him in the copilot’s seat. Although not qualified to physically fly the B-26, Charles Raymond “Bob” Gurney, a thirty-seven-year-old RAAF squadron leader, flew with Herron’s crew to share his extensive knowledge of the region. Raised in New South Wales, Gurney had joined the air force in 1925 and later flew freight to the Morobe goldfields for Guinea Airways. Eventually he became a captain in Qantas Airlines, flying four-engine Empires between Sydney and Great Britain. Recently, he had been given command of 33 Squadron, which operated ex-Qantas Empires out of Townsville.

At some point during the flight to Rabaul, Herron became separated from the other Marauders, which pressed on without him. Thus, he not only reached Rabaul well behind the others but the Japanese were fully alerted. Despite the odds Herron made a daring solo attack. During his run over Simpson Harbor, one of the Marauder’s engines was hit hard by antiaircraft fire, and Herron briefly sought shelter inside a large thunderstorm brewing over St. George’s Channel. Inside the turbulent storm, however, he struggled just to keep the crippled bomber airborne. He ordered the crew to toss overboard anything that wasn’t bolted down, which made the aircraft marginally easier to control; he then flew south almost three hundred miles, trying to get closer to friendly territory. Approaching the Trobriands, Herron instructed the radio operator to begin broadcasting their position and intentions to ditch. Gurney, knowing the Japanese would likely intercept the uncoded message, suggested a simple but clever deception. The radioman tapped out: “Making a forced landing where Francine used to live,” which the staff at Port Moresby recognized. A woman of that name had lived on Kiriwina Island, the biggest in the Trobriand group. Now headquarters knew where to send a rescue plane.

But the B-26’s flight did not end happily. Evidently hoping to save the airplane, Herron attempted a conventional wheels-down landing on a patch of flat terrain that “looked like a meadow.” Unfortunately it was the wrong call. The B-26 was extremely tricky to handle on one engine, and because of its tricycle landing gear, not just any field would do. As a rule, pilots were trained to leave the wheels retracted for emergency landings
on unfamiliar terrain. The rationale was simple: if the ground proved to be anything but smooth, the extended nose wheel could strike an unseen obstacle and cause the aircraft to flip. For that very reason, belly landings were considered safer and usually caused less damage to the aircraft. Furthermore, the emergency procedures section of the B-26 operating manual explicitly cautioned that the airplane would not “maintain altitude on one engine with the landing gear extended.”

Nevertheless, Herron put the wheels down, necessitating an approach speed much higher than normal to maintain control of the crippled bomber. Not surprisingly, the appearance of flat, solid ground on Kiriwina was deceptive. It was actually a bog, much like the one on New Guinea where the “Swamp Ghost” came to rest. When the B-26 touched down and decelerated, the nose wheel plowed into the marsh. The front strut ripped loose, and the Plexiglas nose of the Marauder buried itself in the muck, causing the bomber to flip over onto its back. Moments later five of the crewmen emerged from a hatch in the bomber’s belly. Shaken but unhurt, they struggled through waist-deep ooze to the crumpled nose. They found Gurney dead, but Herron was still alive, trapped in the upside-down cockpit as it slowly began to fill with swamp water. He called out, anxious to know if anyone was hurt. The survivors clawed desperately at the wreckage, trying to pull Herron to safety, but he drowned before they could reach him. Soon thereafter, a Catalina arrived from Port Moresby and flew the anguished crew back to base.

Other squadrons suffered even greater losses during the frenzied reconnaissance effort over the Coral Sea. The RAAF’s Hudsons and Catalinas were in dire need of overhaul, but the constant demand for patrols and reconnaissance was too great to pull them off the line. The flying boats in particular showed the effects of too many missions. The hulls leaked badly after months of combat operations, and the crews operated in a state of near exhaustion. And yet, when the Japanese threatened to invade Port Moresby, the Aussies went out time after time to patrol the sea lanes and reconnoiter the enemy’s bases. In a span of just five days, the Catalina squadrons launched almost twenty sorties from Port Moresby, Tulagi, and other advance bases. The flying boats achieved their objectives but at great cost: three were lost, two others were damaged, and eighteen airmen failed to return.

The first Catalina lost was piloted by twenty-six-year-old Flg. Off. Allan L. Norman of South Australia. Launching from Port Moresby at 0600 on
May 4, his crew headed for the Solomon Sea. A little more than six hours later, they reported an attack by enemy planes southwest of Bougainville. Nothing more was heard from the flying boat, which in fact had been badly damaged and forced down at sea. All nine crewmen were picked up by a Japanese warship and taken to Rabaul, where they were turned over to the 81st Naval Garrison Unit, an infantry force that conducted shore patrols and routine guard duties.