Target: Rabaul (29 page)

Another damaged B-24, piloted by Flight Officer Donald K. McNeff of the 400th Squadron, stayed with the formation for almost ninety minutes after the bombing run. Last seen off New Britain at 1330, McNeff was lagging about a mile behind. A crewman in another bomber noted that the fuselage of the B-24 had been “shot up,” otherwise the plane “did not appear to be in trouble.” However, neither the Liberator nor any of its crew were ever seen again. Where and why the bomber stopped flying are unknown.

IN CONTRAST TO the fierce interception the lead elements of the 90th Bomb Group experienced, the 43rd encountered almost no opposition. The enemy fighters had been drawn far to the south, chasing down the Liberators flown by Rogers and his forward elements. Free from distractions, the 43rd Group’s bombardiers had a rare opportunity to conduct textbook bombing.

In the tail-end 403rd Squadron, Cromie had a fabulous view from
Satan’s Sister
:

A few miles ahead I saw what looked like smoke hanging low along the water’s edge. It was Rabaul. By leaning a little way out into the slipstream, I could see a couple of Jap ships beginning to circle frantically in the outer harbor.

From the other window I saw dozens of Jap ships, most of them still motionless, and a number of bombs bursting among them, throwing water high into the air and leaving black smoke hanging where the bomb had split the water.

As Powell
^*
and I watched, we could see one ship disappear momentarily as some sharpshooting bombardier scored a direct hit. Then, as we came over the harbor, I lay down and peered thru the bottom turret to see our brown beauties of bombs drop into space to begin the long trip down.

Someone’s bombs—either ours or those of the plane ahead—landed very close to two large ships which still were side by side, perhaps caught as they were fueling. The bombs made a brisk pattern of near misses, but perhaps even then they did grave damage to the ships.

The sky became discolored with bursting anti-aircraft fire, which came from a few ships and also from some ground guns near an extinct volcano. Then we turned over the harbor and began to leave the target area.

Behind I could see the town of Rabaul—which from a height of many thousands of feet looks like a delightful vacation spot—the harbor, where at least two and perhaps more ships were burning with a pleasant persistence, and a couple of air fields, one of which was almost completely wreathed with smoke.

The 43rd claimed the destruction of “between six and a dozen large and small watercraft,” with an equal number damaged. Additionally, the crews reported
seeing “only two Nip fighter planes,” neither of which attacked aggressively. So the bombers turned for home, many heading toward Kiriwina Island in case they needed to stop for fuel. Several did land there; others put down at Goodenough Island. Throughout the afternoon, damaged B-24s and those with precious little fuel remaining landed wherever practical. Amazingly, only one crew came up short.
The Mirage
, piloted by Lt. Dorwan C. Wilson, 403rd Squadron, made a forced landing on a reef west of Kiriwina with one engine out. The plane was wrecked and five crewmembers suffered injuries, but all survived and were rescued the next day.

IN RABAUL, THE American POWs reacted to the daylight raid with pride and fear. Holguin remembered that the air raid sirens began to wail at about 1030 Tokyo time (an hour ahead of the local time used by Allied forces). “[A]lmost simultaneously,” he wrote, “we could hear strafing going on and bombs going off in the distance.… However, we could not see the airplanes.”

Despite a promise of an escort to an air raid shelter, the POWs remained alone in their flimsy building. Without the guards around, the prisoners peered through a small window that faced the courtyard, and thus could see the B-24s as they approached from the south and attacked Simpson Harbor. “Even at that distance,” recalled Holguin, “the bomb explosions shook the ground beneath us and rattled the wooden walls. We cheered our men and prayed for them. One of the B-24’s was hit by the Zeros and began trailing smoke as the formation wheeled toward the west and headed for home. We yelled at the plane and crew to keep going and not to fall into the hands of the enemy.”

SEVERAL RETURNING BOMBERS, having landed elsewhere to get fuel, make repairs, or both, didn’t reach home base until well into the evening. Officers and enlisted crewmen alike had to spend additional time giving reports to squadron intelligence officers. The latter, in turn, attempted to correlate accounts, particularly regarding claims for aerial victories. From the squadron level, reports were forwarded to group personnel and then to V Bomber Command or V Fighter Command. The fact that nearly 340 aircraft had started out on the mission (not counting five “weather ships” and several reconnaissance aircraft) meant a long night of fact-gathering for the intelligence personnel.

No one was more eager to hear results than the generals—particularly Kenney. He and MacArthur had spent the day with Whitehead at ADVON headquarters, overlooking Jackson Field. The atmosphere was like a politician’s living room on election night; everyone waited anxiously for the numbers to come in. Reacting to MacArthur’s cautionary estimate that he’d lose thirty planes, Kenney guesstimated eleven losses. When the squadrons submitted their final head counts, Kenney was pleased to initially record his losses as two B-24s, two B-25s, and one Beaufighter. The total was accurate, but Kenney would later correct the figures to reflect the loss of three Liberators, one Mitchell, and a Beaufighter.

Encouraged by the early results, MacArthur wanted to spread the word immediately. But as Kenney noted that evening: “Could not get all the dope from squadrons at Port Moresby and Dobo in time for MacA’s communiqué, so he said to postpone it until October 13.”

It is interesting that Kenney mentioned squadron reports but not photographic evidence. He should have known to regard his squadrons’ claims with caution, as they were prone to exaggeration. Post-strike photographs, on the other hand, showed the real outcome. And on October 12, scores of clear, detailed photos were developed after the raid. Many of the B-25 strafers were equipped with a K-21 aerial camera, installed in the rear fuselage facing aft, which used an intervalometer to automatically take high resolution images with the release of the bombs or parafrags. Additionally, the 8th Photo Reconnaissance squadron put no less than four F-4/F-5 Lightnings over Rabaul, including one that took color photographs.

The results, described frankly in the squadron’s unofficial war diary, presented a dilemma for the heavy bomber commanders:

When all the pictures were developed, the observed damage wasn’t nearly what was expected, and all afternoon generals and colonels were calling the [reconnaissance] pilots, pleading with them to say that they personally observed 5 warships rolled over and sunk, etc.—they had to, damn it—didn’t 80 B-24s bomb the harbor? Next morning’s A-2 report from the bomber crews substantiated the fact that they can’t even see to work a bomb sight, let alone observe direct hits from 23,000. According to the heavies, they sank everything in the harbor; according to 8th Photo’s pictures, they’re damn lucky if they sank a total of five good-sized ships.

The diarist’s remarks were harsh, but justified. An internal summary published by the Fifth Air Force revealed that of thirty-six bombs dropped by Rogers’ lead element, only three hits were scored—a ratio of 8 percent. Despite such evidence, MacArthur’s communiqué stated: “[O]ur heavy bombers with 1,000-lb bombs sank or destroyed three destroyers, two merchant ships of 5,800 tons each, and one of 7,000 tons, forty-three seagoing cargo vessels ranging from 100 to 500 tons, and 70 harbor craft. In addition they hit and severely damaged a submarine and its 5,000 ton tender, a 6,800 ton destroyer tender, and a 7,000 ton cargo ship.”

Contrary to claims, no warships sank, although several were damaged—none severely. These facts were compiled from a Pentagon group called the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC). A brainchild of General Marshall and Admiral King, the committee consisted of seven army and navy officers who reviewed information and reports from numerous sources. Among the warships targeted by the heavy bombers on October 12, the special purpose ship
Tsukushi
and the fifteen-thousand-ton ton oiler
Naruto
received minor damage, their hulls holed by bomb splinters—one of which may have killed the tanker’s captain.
Nearby, the destroyers
Mochizuki
,
Minazuki
, and
Tachikazi
also suffered minor damage from near misses, as did submarines I-77, I-80, and RO-105. Three other subs, moored in deep water, submerged when the bombing began.

The claim that forty-six ships of one hundred tons or greater plus seventy small craft had sunk in Simpson Harbor was outrageous. Only six noncombatants actually sank, the largest being
Keishu Maru
, a navy auxiliary of 5,880 tons. Three army cargo ships smaller than 550 tons, and two small miscellaneous navy boats—one a patrol craft of 34 tons—were sunk or left partially submerged. MacArthur and Kenney seemed determined to prove the old adage that the truth should never get in the way of a good story.

MacArthur’s press release boasted that the low-level strafers destroyed one hundred Japanese planes on the ground and severely damaged another fifty-one. Additionally, twenty-six enemy planes were shot down in aerial combat. The P-38s were awarded only three official victories, and the B-25 strafers only two, so most of the shoot-downs were credited to various gunners aboard the B-24s. Actual Japanese combat losses amounted to four Zeros (two each from Air Groups 204 and 205) and at least nine others damaged by gunfire, two of them seriously.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment that day was achieved by the maintenance crews and ground support personnel. Incredibly, only three hours after the last B-25 returned, 108 strafers were declared operational for another mission. Although the B-24s had returned to Port Moresby later, seventy were available by the following morning, while the P-38 crews at Dobodura and Kiriwina had prepped more than one hundred Lightnings.

A follow-up raid was already in the works, again with emphasis on the heavy bombers. This time, however, the targets would be the many barracks, warehouses, supply dumps, and headquarters buildings in downtown Rabaul. Whether Whitehead and his staff knew that Allied airmen were being held there is unknown—and probably irrelevant. Saturation bombing, as Holguin and McMurria had warned their captors, was bound to begin sooner or later. Certainly the bomber crews had no compunction about hitting downtown Rabaul. As the 43rd Bomb Group’s narrative history explained, “the town area is a target the boys have been itching to hit for a long time.”

The prisoners knew that, but didn’t begrudge the bomber crews. “The thought of dying at the hands of our own brothers was horrifying …,” Holguin wrote, “even though all of us had accepted the fact that we would eventually perish—one way or another.”

*
Of the eight Wirraways that took off, six were either shot down or crash-landed and a seventh was damaged.

*
Lieutenant Joseph H. Helbert and Lieutenant Benjamin F. Burgess

*
Staff Sergeant Ralph W. Powell, one of the side gunners in the crew of
Satan’s Sister

CHAPTER 12

Stormy Weather

F
ORTUNATELY FOR THE POWs
in Chinatown, the planned saturation bombing did not materialize. Weather conditions between New Guinea and New Britain had deteriorated overnight. The morning forecast was deemed too unfavorable to launch the medium bombers. That did not stop a predawn launch by Wing Commander Geoffrey D. Nicoll, who led twelve Bristol of No. 8 Squadron, RAAF, from their base at Goodenough Island to attack Simpson Harbor. Details of the raid are sketchy, but the official RAAF history implies that only two crews launched torpedoes—with no observation of results. The only good news, considering the effort, was the survival of all twelve Beauforts.

At Port Moresby, meanwhile, the B-24s began taking off at 0800. Seventy Liberators headed down the coast before turning toward Kiriwina, where they rendezvoused with more than a hundred P-38s. Heading across the Solomon Sea, the formation encountered bad weather. Halfway to New Britain, a massive frontal system extended from five thousand to thirty thousand feet. The front was extremely turbulent, and icing conditions existed above fifteen thousand feet.

The formation separated as various elements tried to penetrate the front. Some B-24s climbed as high as twenty-two thousand feet, but they began to pick up ice—extremely hazardous for the already-overloaded bombers. Planes were barely in control as they pushed through near-whiteout conditions, and one group later reported that Liberators and Lightnings “were seemingly all over the sky.”