Fortress Rabaul (59 page)

The combat debut of both the B-25 Mitchell and the B-26 Marauder took place in the Southwest Pacific on April 6, 1942. Here, a sleek Marauder of the 22nd Bomb Group has just bombed the Japanese airdrome at Lae on the coast of New Guinea.
MacArthur Memorial

A Model 21 Zero (A6M2) of the Tainan Air Group is being warmed up at Lakunai airdrome in mid-1942. With a roster of aggressive aces, Japan’s most famous fighter unit destroyed dozens of Allied aircraft in the air and on the ground.
Hajime Yoshida

Maintenance on a Model 21 Zero is performed in the shadow of Tavurvur volcano, which belches smoke across Matupit Harbor from Lakunai airdrome. Note the perfunctory application of palm-frond camouflage.
Henry Sakaida

A primitive hangar at Lakunai shows evidence of blast damage from Allied attacks. Curiously, the Zero parked inside is heavily camouflaged with palm fronds, but there are no trees anywhere nearby.
Henry Sakaida

Flight Petty Officer Saburo Sakai, his face bloody and swollen, is surrounded by members of the Tainan Air Group at Lakunai on August 8, 1942. Partially paralyzed and blinded in one eye, he completed a 650-mile flight from Guadalcanal after a machine-gun bullet creased his skull.
Henry Sakaida

When his regular bomber suffered an engine failure on the eve of a big mission to Rabaul, Capt. Harl Pease Jr. and his crew took a worn-out B-17E instead. Shot down over New Britain on August 7, 1942, Pease was posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor.
MacArthur Memorial

High-altitude bombing rarely succeeded against ships. Kenney’s former aide, Maj. William Benn, perfected skip-bombing tactics with B-17s of the 63rd Bomb Squadron. The missions, usually conducted on moonlit nights, achieved far better results.
Author’s Collection

After the war it was learned that Pease and one of his crewmen had bailed out and were taken prisoner. Two months later, Warrant Officer Minoru Yoshimura of the 81st Naval Garrison Unit oversaw the execution of Pease and seven other captives, who were bayoneted at the edge of a common grave.
Australian War Memorial

Head of V Bomber Command during the second half of 1942, Brig. Gen. Kenneth Walker was one of the army’s top proponents of high-altitude daylight strategic bombing. His convictions were often at odds with the low-level tactics favored by General Kenney, who also preferred night attacks against heavily defended Rabaul.
Douglas Walker

Ordnance men prepare to “bomb up”
Yankee Doodle Dandy
, a B-24 Liberator of the 90th Bomb Group (Heavy) in a revetment at Port Moresby. The group’s early combat history was marred by bad luck, with an inordinate number of accidents and non-combat-related losses.
90th Bomb Group Association

Blazing tropical heat, poor living conditions, and combat stress put a big strain on morale. But the top American airman in the Southwest Pacific, the diminutive Gen. George Kenney, awarded hundreds of medals to inspire his men.
James Harcrow

Kenney also instigated a system to give combat crews a week’s relaxation in Australian cities. This cartoon pokes fun at the crew of a B-17 that has just returned from R&R in Sydney—with the men in worse shape than before.
43rd Bomb Group Association