Target: Rabaul (16 page)

The twin-engine fighter was widely reported, but its origin remains a mystery. What mattered most, for the men in the forward section of the bomber, was the Japanese pilots’ accurate shooting. “One shell exploded behind my seat and ignited our oxygen system and hydraulic system,” remembered Zeamer. “Both of my wrists had been hit, and another 20mm went through my left knee and shattered it. My flight instruments were blown out of the panel and were hanging down by their wires. There was blood running down from my hands, which were slippery on the control wheel.”

In excruciating pain, Zeamer had more than a hundred pieces of shrapnel and debris embedded in his legs. An artery in his wrist had been nicked, causing blood to spurt with every heartbeat. But the situation was even worse in the nose section. Sarnoski’s abdomen had been ripped open, and he had either a bullet or shrapnel hole in his neck. Johnston scrambled to assist him (one account has Johnston briefly sticking his index finger into Sarnoski’s neck to stop the flow of blood), but Sarnoski waved him off as the twin-engine fighter bored in.

The extract of the crew report contains an unadorned depiction of the dying man’s courage under fire.

Though mortally wounded, the bombardier, after destroying the first enemy aircraft, swung his gun on the twin-engine fighter. The pilot observed his tracers striking this enemy aircraft between the nose guns and the cockpit. The enemy aircraft commenced to smoke heavily, probably burning, before passing from view. An explosive shell from this twin engine aircraft burst in the nose, knocking both the bombardier and navigator back into the catwalk
under the cockpit, and small caliber shells wounded the radio operator and holed the fin.

During this attack, the engineer, also wounded in both legs, kept his guns firing in short bursts of 4 to 5 rounds, only to be constantly clearing them of repeated jams.

The severity of damage caused by the twin-engine fighter suggests that a large caliber shell, possibly a 37mm, exploded in the nose section of the B-17. If so, the attacker may have been a Ki-45 Nick, certain models of which were equipped with such cannon. Zeamer’s description of the enemy plane’s nose armament, combined with a separate observation from the crew that the engine nacelles extended to the trailing edge of the wings, matched the characteristics of the Ki-45.

The coordinated attack had caused mayhem aboard
Old 666
. Wind shrieked through holes in the bomber’s nose panels and fuselage; punctured oxygen bottles burned fiercely; the navigator had been wounded in the face; and the copilot, Lt. John T. Britton, was knocked unconscious with a head wound. Despite his own injuries, Zeamer refused to give up the controls. With the oxygen system destroyed, the crew faced hypoxia within moments, so he took immediate action. Although most of the flight instruments had been shot away, he rolled the huge airplane to the right and pushed the control column forward, sending the bomber into a steep dive. “I figured if we got hit one more time,” he later stated, “we’d be done.”

The dive was so steep that the rate-of-descent indicator pegged at six thousand feet per minute. The altimeter had been destroyed at 18,200 feet, so Zeamer relied on instinct and judgment to begin his pullout. In what can only be described as an amazing feat of airmanship and determination, he physically hauled the bomber out of its rivet-shaking dive. The flight controls were not hydraulically boosted, which meant that Zeamer had to pull mightily on the control column to bring the nose up.
Old 666
leveled off at six thousand feet, her dramatic plunge having convinced the Japanese that she was no longer a threat—some even believed the bomber had crashed. Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Suhiro Yamamoto reported erroneously that its wreckage was later found on Bougainville.

But the bomber continued to fly on four good engines. The bad news was that it still had to cross five hundred miles of ocean before reaching safety. Disoriented and losing blood, sometimes in agony, at other times semiconscious, Zeamer grimly held the controls as he headed toward New Guinea. It was now about 0900, the sun still relatively low in the sky. The remaining Zeros stunted around the damaged B-17 in what the crew later described as “a Lufbery,” a compelling comment which indicates that the Japanese employed a maneuver known as
hineri-komi
(literally, “twisting in”).

The tactic involved multiple fighters in a looping tail chase. Upon seeing the maneuver for the first time, most Allied pilots called it a “Lufbery Circle,” referring to a World War I tactic named for French ace Raoul Lufbery. The Japanese adaptation
puzzled Allied airmen, for it often seemed that they were merely performing the maneuver to taunt their enemy or show off. Perhaps, in the absence of Oki, his subordinates resorted to the
hineri-komi
as a fallback. Periodically, one of them would peel away from the circle and commence a gunnery run on the B-17, usually pressing in close. But the crew of
Old 666
kept up their defensive fire, and the slicing attacks caused no additional damage.

After forty-five minutes, the Hamps turned away and headed back to Buka. American gunners had hit three more, bringing the total number of damaged fighters to four. And thanks to the preservation of the
kodochosho
, some interesting statistics are available. Air Group 251’s seven participating Zeros expended about five hundred 20mm shells and more than seven hundred 7.7mm rounds during this intercept. Curiously, however, while Yamamoto emptied his ammunition canisters at the bomber, Koichi Terada, a pilot of the same rank, apparently never fired a shot.

The
kodochosho
also confirms that no interceptors were shot down, despite the claims by Zeamer’s crew that five enemy fighters had been destroyed. Seven of the eight pilots later participated in the strike against Allied shipping at Lunga Point, the eighth being Yahiro, who had ditched with engine failure and was still awaiting rescue. (Ironically, Japanese losses during the afternoon strike were heavy. Twenty-eight fighters and dive-bombers failed to return, including Oki and Yamamoto.)

Aboard the badly damaged bomber, Pugh left his tail gun position and moved forward to assist with the wounded. He found Sarnoski unconscious in the bloody nose compartment, pulled the bombardier clear, and then cradled the dying man’s head in his lap. A few minutes later, Sarnoski died from loss of blood, shock, or a combination of the two.

Zeamer, also losing blood, refused to leave the pilot’s seat. “I don’t move until the mission is ended,” he told anyone who suggested otherwise. His stubbornness may have been his best defense. Had he relinquished the controls, he might have lapsed into unconsciousness. Zeamer seemed to will the plane back over the Solomon Sea, thereby keeping himself alive. Sergeant Able, although wounded in both legs, occupied the copilot’s seat to assist Zeamer throughout the long flight. Sergeants Dillman and Kendrick, the only others not wounded, moved about the aircraft providing first aid.

Damaged by at least five cannon shells and more than 180 bullets,
Old 666
droned across the ocean for another two and a half excruciating hours. No attempt was made to cross the Owen Stanley Mountains; instead, a revived John Britton took over the controls as they approached Dobodura. With the hydraulic system destroyed, neither the flaps nor the brakes would work, guaranteeing not only a hot landing but difficulty in stopping the plane safely on the runway. Despite all the pressure, Britton made one of the best landings of his life. “I just greased it in,” he recalled later. To stop the brakeless bomber, he performed a ground loop at the end of the dirt strip.

Zeamer felt the bomber touch down, but he’d lost so much blood that he could see only a gray haze. He slumped over as personnel from the “meat wagon” arrived. When they came aboard, he thought he heard someone say, “Get the pilot last, he’s dead.” A few moments later, he felt himself being lifted from the bullet-scarred cockpit. Whisked to the field hospital in critical condition, he was stabilized overnight and then airlifted the next day to the main hospital in Port Moresby. After lingering on the edge for days he gradually recovered, but faced months of rehabilitation before he was finally released.

At ADVON headquarters, Colonel Cooper considered the feats of Zeamer and Sarnoski deserving of the nation’s highest award for military valor—the Medal of Honor. General Whitehead endorsed both recommendations, which proceeded successfully up the chain of command and ultimately earned congressional approval. Zeamer received his medal from General Arnold at the Pentagon exactly seven months after the mission, while Sarnoski’s was presented posthumously to his widow in Richmond, Virginia. Each of the other crewmen aboard
Old 666
received a Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for combat valor.

Zeamer not only completed the mapping run, but he gave the 43rd Bomb Group bragging rights. With two Medals of Honor and seven Distinguished Service Crosses for a single mission, the pilot nobody wanted and his Eager Beavers became the most highly decorated combat crew in American history.

CHAPTER 7

The Big Feud

O
NE UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCE
of the Zeamer mission was the resolution of a quarrel. For the past several months, Kenney had watched with guarded amusement as his two veteran heavy bomb groups, the 43rd and the 90th, competed with each other. Eventually the competition degenerated into a full-blown dispute, later coined “The Big Feud” by a correspondent for
Yank
magazine.

The rivalry was inevitable. Virtually all military units are highly competitive. Within every branch of service, an almost compulsive need exists to demonstrate superiority over all challengers—both friends and foes. In aviation communities, the competition becomes especially fierce at the group and squadron levels, and even among individual pilots. Everyone wants to prove who’s best, whether the benchmark is flying, shooting, bombing, or some other skill set. When two or more units compete, there is no reward for second-best.

In the Fifth Air Force (not counting the 380th Bomb Group, which was too new), the competition between the heavies was simple: the 43rd Group flew B-17s, while the 90th operated B-24s. The latter frequently boasted that its Liberators could fly faster and farther with the same payload than the Flying Fortresses, which was true. But the argument rang hollow.

For starters, the B-17 was easy to fly, forgiving of mistakes, steady in formation, rugged in combat, and genuinely adored by its crews. The B-24, in comparison, had not earned such favor, a point the 90th Group could never argue. Soon after the group was formed in 1942, Charles Lindbergh, the famed transatlantic aviator, had made unflattering comments about the B-24 and publicly questioned its overall safety. The 90th Group, in fact, had just arrived in Hawaii. The group commander, collaborating with some of his senior officers, complained vocally about the B-24s and even demanded B-17s. Informed of this quasi-mutiny, General Arnold advised Kenney and the Seventh Air Force commander that a serious problem existed within the group. Several personnel, including the group commander and a squadron leader, were subsequently sacked.

With a new commander in place, the 90th brought its B-24Ds to Australia in early November 1942. But the group seemed jinxed from the outset. First, a rash of nose gear failures grounded all forty-eight bombers. The group moved to Iron Range, where the first two missions were disastrous: four B-24s and thirty men were lost, including the new group commander, Col. Arthur W. Meehan. Kenney restricted the entire group from combat until the crews gained more experience in night flying and navigation. Even after the probation was lifted, the 90th continued to suffer an inordinate number of mishaps and operational losses.

One crash that particularly affected the Allied cause occurred on the last day of April 1943. First Lieutenant Jindrich L. “Henry” Chovanec and his crew of the 321st Bomb Squadron, flying a B-24 named
Czech’em
, took off for a general reconnaissance flight. The mission also involved a supply drop to support Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) personnel near Bena Bena, a village in the New Guinea highlands. To help identify the drop site, thirty-four-year-old Flight Lt. Leigh G. Vial, RAAF, accompanied the crew. Unknown causes led to the crash of the Liberator in the mountains sixteen miles south of Bena Bena, killing all twelve souls on board. Vial, a coastwatcher known as “Golden Voice,” was an irreplaceable asset who had survived in the mountains above Lae for months while reporting on enemy activity. His death, by volunteering for what should have been a routine daylight event, was a difficult blow to the Allies.

Five days after the fatal mishap, Whitehead accompanied Lt. Col. Arthur H. Rogers, in line to assume command of the 90th Group, on an armed reconnaissance mission over northern New Guinea. Concerned about the group’s record, Whitehead made no secret of the fact that he was aboard to evaluate Rogers. He got his chance. The weather was decent when the B-24 took off from Ward’s Strip outside Port Moresby, but conditions quickly deteriorated.