Target: Rabaul (44 page)

ABOARD TED SHERMAN’S task force, sailing around the north coast of Bougainville, the air crews were well aware that they were headed back to Rabaul. “We were more scared the second time,” remembered Harper. “I was more scared, thinking the Japs would have the same number of airplanes up there.”

The fliers aboard the carriers of Montgomery’s task group, steaming toward a separate launch point south of Bougainville, got the word November 10. Aboard
Bunker Hill
, the popular Capt. John J. Ballentine picked up a microphone and informed the crew over the ship-wide intercom, called the 1MC. Lieutenant William F. “Red” Krantz, an Avenger pilot in Torpedo Squadron 17, would never forget the announcement:

The captain went on the P.A. system and said, “Our first mission is going to be an attack against Rabaul.” God, the ship was just buzzing at that point. We knew it was the biggest Jap base around, and that it was going to be a tough place to hit.

It was a terrific shock that we were going to hit this place that was well defended, with a lot of fighters and everything. We didn’t know much about Rabaul, but from that time on we were briefed. I know there were a lot of letter writers, sending letters home saying, “If I don’t come back … ” I did that; you had to assume such things.

Most people did. It wasn’t just me. You had to make plans about what to tell someone. I wrote to my wife and told her the usual things: that I loved her, all of that, in case I didn’t come back.

Krantz gathered his crew to rehearse emergency procedures. He’d trained them religiously, getting out on the wing of his Avenger almost every day with Aviation Ordnanceman 3rd Class Virgil J. Case and Aviation Radioman 3rd Class Orville L. Miller to practice the checklist for ditching. “A lot of guys laughed at me,” Krantz admitted. “We had a couple of wise-guys in the squadron—but I felt that we should really be on top of procedures.”

Early the next morning, the flight crews gathered for final briefings. The galleys served steak and eggs, but most fliers were too wired to eat. The carrier raid began at sunrise as
Saratoga
and
Princeton
, steaming north of Bougainville near the Green Islands, sent up every available plane. The maintenance men had outdone themselves again, prepping 107 aircraft. Thirty-six F6F-3 Hellcats, twenty-three SBD-5 Dauntlesses, and nineteen TBF-1 Avengers took off from
Sara
, while the smaller
Princeton
launched twenty Hellcats and nine Avengers. Once airborne, the squadrons assembled by type, the bombers bunching close together, Hellcats taking assigned positions for close, medium, or high cover.

Heading due west, the formation passed over New Ireland, then proceeded directly toward the entrance to Simpson Harbor. The morning sun reflected brightly off towering cumulonimbus clouds, heavy with rain. Unfortunately, an especially large squall covered most of Crater Peninsula, extending to the north over Saint George’s Channel. The storm provided some coverage for the attackers, but Japanese warships would also hide beneath it when the alarm went up.

WHILE THE PLANES of Sherman’s task force were taking off, a strike by twenty-three Liberators of the 43rd Bomb Group hit Lakunai airdrome. Rather than raid Rabaul
after
the carrier planes attacked, as Kenney had advised, Whitehead ordered the B-24s aloft from New Guinea in the middle of the night. Flying to Rabaul without fighter escort, they bombed Lakunai at dawn. Compared with recent raids, the effort was a whimper. It was also the last time that the Fifth Air Force attacked Rabaul, closing out a campaign that began twenty-one months earlier, when Maj. Dick Carmichael bombed Simpson Harbor with five unescorted B-17s.

SOUTHEAST OF RABAUL, the aircrews of Task Group 50.3 were tense as they waited for their orders to launch. Only a few senior pilots aboard
Bunker Hill
had combat experience; the rest were anticipating their first mission. “It looked like we were going to hit heavy opposition,” recalled Krantz, “but we were excited about attacking heavy men-of-war. We knew they were there, and I certainly looked forward to it. I wasn’t worried about getting killed or shot down or a damn thing; all I was thinking was that this was what we had trained for.”

The fliers aboard
Essex
and
Independence
had more experience, but according to Lt. j.g. Hamilton McWhorter III of Fighting Squadron 9, their mood was similar: “Going into Rabaul was certainly a scary, awesome task, since we knew that it was a
very formidable and well-defended base. Even so, we were eager to go in and inflict as much damage as possible.”

Soon after daybreak, Montgomery’s three carriers began launching the strike aircraft.
Bunker Hill
put up twenty-seven Hellcats, nineteen Avengers, and twenty-three Helldivers. One SB2C bellied in off the carrier’s bow; the pilot and gunner both survived. A plane guard destroyer dashed in, but only the rear gunner was recovered. Lieutenant Junior Grade Ralph L. Gunville drowned because his pockets were stuffed with extra rations for the plane’s life raft in the event of a ditching.

Nearby,
Essex
launched twenty-nine Hellcats, twenty-eight Dauntless dive-bombers, and eighteen torpedo planes.
Independence
put up sixteen fighters and nine more Avengers. Task Group 50.3 provided 168 aircraft, a very large navy strike by 1943 standards.

As with the November 5 raid, ComAirSols had arranged for land-based fighter squadrons to provide CAP over the task group during the strike. Not only did this add fighters, but it provided a unique homecoming opportunity for Lt. Cmdr. John T. Blackburn and Fighting 17. Based at Ondongo on New Georgia, the squadron had originally been assigned to
Bunker Hill’s
air group. Difficulties with the early-model F4U-1 Corsairs, however, had caused “Blackburn’s Irregulars” to be detached from the ship. For the next several months, VF-17 operated from island bases in the Solomons. A Hellcat squadron, Fighting 18, subsequently joined
Bunker Hill
.

With reinstalled tail hooks on their Corsairs, Blackburn and twenty-three other pilots took off from Ondongo before dawn. One turned back, but the rest eventually located the task group and orbited overhead while the strike aircraft were launched. Similarly, twelve Hellcats from VF-33 at Segi Point arrived on CAP. After the strike force departed for Rabaul, the land-based pilots showed their professionalism by trapping to refuel—eleven Corsairs aboard
Essex
, twelve aboard
Bunker Hill
, and the Hellcats aboard
Independence
.

Arriving at Rabaul an hour ahead of the second wave, the attackers from
Saratoga
and
Princeton
found fewer targets compared to the previous raid.
Maya
, damaged on November 5, and
Agano, Noshira
, and
Yubari
were scattered around Simpson Harbor, along with about eight destroyers.

As before, Newell led Bombing 12 toward the anchorage while descending to ten thousand feet. Ten Zekes loitered about five thousand feet above the formation but showed no signs of intercepting. They were evidently a diversion, as the rearmost division of VF-12 was suddenly attacked from behind. The squadron’s “Tail-end Charlie,” Lt. j.g. William W. Culver, had a habit of lagging behind, and the Japanese singled him out. His F6F, hit in the port wing and engine, continued to fly but was out of the fight before it started. Oil covered the entire fuselage and canopy, blocking Culver’s vision. His only recourse was to slide back the canopy and stick with his section leader. While Culver struggled to maintain formation, Lt. j.g. Merle W. Swarthout, the division leader, went after one of the Zekes and flamed
it. Ironically, it proved to be the only victory claimed by the
Saratoga
or
Princeton
fighter squadrons that day.

Soon thereafter, shore batteries and shipboard antiaircraft guns opened fire. The dive-bombers and torpedo planes targeted a light cruiser and four destroyers, but all hid beneath the squall that covered much of Crater Peninsula and the Matupit anchorage. Heavy antiaircraft fire crippled one TBF, piloted by Lt. j.g. Stefan A. Nyarady of Torpedo Squadron 12, who was forced to ditch in the harbor. The radio operator did not survive the watery crash, but Nyarady and the turret gunner, Aviation Ordnanceman 2nd Class Harlan J. Burrus, were plucked from Simpson Harbor and became POWs.

Except for the heavy barrages of antiaircraft fire and the brief encounter that damaged Culver’s Hellcat, there was little opposition. While the first wave egressed across Saint George’s Channel, a few phosphorus bombs exploded in midair. But the aerial bursts had no effect, and the only other casualty besides Nyarady’s TBF was the Hellcat flown by Culver. Unable to land aboard
Saratoga
because of his oil-slicked windscreen, he bailed out near the ship and was promptly picked up by a destroyer.

The first planes from TG 50.3 to approach Rabaul were led by Cmdr. Paul E. Emrick, the air group commander from
Essex
, whose formation arrived over the southern tip of New Ireland around 0830. By this time, more than a hundred Japanese fighters were airborne: sixty-eight from the air groups of the Eleventh Air Fleet, and thirty-nine from
Shokaku, Zuikaku
, and
Zuiho
. However, just as they had done on November 5, the Japanese did not attack the well-disciplined American formation as it proceeded toward Simpson Harbor. Looking over the situation, Emrick realized that the huge squall blanketing Crater Peninsula posed a problem. It would take too long for his torpedo planes to circle the squall and commence their runs from upwind; therefore, he sent new directions over the radio. The TBFs of Torpedo Squadron 9 descended gradually while continuing over Rabaul on a northwesterly heading, then executed a 180-degree diving left turn and came in low over the hills southwest of Rabaul.

Following the lead formation, Cmdr. Michael E. Bagdanovich, the air group commander from
Bunker Hill
, decided to send his Helldivers and Avengers straight in. The pilots of Torpedo Squadron 17, recalled Bill Krantz, had to think fast: “Bagdanovich radioed ‘Attack, attack, attack!’ We picked out targets and went on down. There was a big rainsquall, and antiaircraft fire all over the place.”

While the torpedo planes set up their attacks, the dive-bombers reached their targets first. The Helldiver pilots accounted well for themselves on their inaugural mission, attacking what they believed were a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and two destroyers just east of Simpson Harbor. Some pilots released their bombs at altitudes as low as one thousand feet, and one of the armor-piercing bombs hit a destroyer squarely. Observing “a tremendous explosion … and large yellow flames,” Bagdanovich reported the ship as probably sunk. That much was true. The
victim was
Suzunami
, a 2,500-ton destroyer that had been loading torpedoes in the vicinity of Matupit Island. It blew up and sank with the loss of 148 lives, including its captain, Cmdr. Masao Kamiyama.

Other Helldivers attacked a “three-stack Japanese light cruiser,” reportedly sinking it with three direct hits. A different three-stacker, hit by two five-hundred-pound GP bombs that heavily damaged the superstructure, remained under control and raced out of the harbor. No planes from Bombing 17 were lost over the target area, but one was badly damaged by flak. Another had its huge empennage and both ailerons shredded by a Japanese fighter during the run-out from Simpson Harbor. Unable to land aboard, both planes ditched alongside destroyers, with all crewmembers rescued.

The TBFs attacked next, with numerous cases of mistaken identity. Ten pilots from Torpedo 17 attacked a “
Furutaka
-class cruiser” and claimed a total of two hits—though no explosions were observed. Other aircrews went after a light cruiser and several destroyers, claiming no hits whatsoever.

Many warships looked bigger and stronger than they actually were, an illusion caused in part by the fliers’ inexperience.
Furataka
-class cruisers were six hundred feet long, had two funnels, and displaced over 10,500 tons; however, the warship that drew attention from the torpedo planes was actually
Agano
of approximately 8,500 tons. Commissioned less than thirteen months earlier, she had been slightly damaged on November 5, but was less fortunate this day. A single torpedo struck her stern, causing serious but repairable damage. Rear Admiral Morikazu Osugi, commander of Destroyer Squadron 10, was injured by the blast and transferred to a different ship the following day.

Krantz was among those who targeted
Agano
. After he heard Bagdanovich’s radio call to commence the attack, Krantz saw two cruisers heading out of Simpson Harbor and turned toward the largest. “I just picked out a heavy cruiser and got a good lead on him,” he later stated. “I used the old formula: for every ten knots of speed, lead him by a half a ship-length.”

Making a smooth drop, Krantz believed his torpedo had a good chance of scoring a hit, but he couldn’t get a visual confirmation. As he passed astern of the cruiser, he had to decide quickly which way to turn. The shortest egress route was to the east, but a hard right turn would expose him to the cruiser’s many guns and carry him toward the antiaircraft emplacements on Praed Point. Straight ahead lay Crater Peninsula and an even heavier concentration of antiaircraft guns, including those aboard the ships in Matupit Harbor.

Krantz did the sensible thing. Staying just above the wave tops, he turned hard left. His flight path crossed the bow of a destroyer that was trailing
Agano
, and for several long seconds the Avenger’s white underbelly was broadside to the Japanese gunners. A large shell exploded under the engine, almost flipping the big plane over on its back. Krantz quickly regained control, but he and his two crewmen knew their plane had been badly hit—and right over the enemy’s most heavily
defended South Pacific base. Their saving grace was the sheer size of the Avenger and its famous ruggedness. For the time being, the TBF stayed in the air, but it left a long, telltale streak of black smoke.