Undoubtedly feeling far better about the day’s bombing than they had about the previous mission’s results, the crews of the two B-32s headed south. The return flight was uneventful, and the aircraft landed at Floridablanca just before 3 P.M.39
Mission 9
After a day off—during which B-24 pilots transitioning into the B-32 took The Lady is Fresh aloft on a series of short training hops and the other two Dominators underwent needed maintenance—it was back to work on June 22.
At the early morning briefing for the ninth combat-test mission the regular crews of The Lady is Fresh and 528 (Hobo Queen II was still grounded by supercharger issues) heard the somewhat disquieting news that the day’s planned strike would likely be the most hazardous they’d yet flown. Located in the western Formosa town of Heito,40 the target was a sprawling sugar refinery that had been at least partially converted for the production of butanol, an alcohol-based solvent and potential synthetic additive to aviation gasoline.
The hazard in attacking the plant came from a large anti-aircraft gun emplacement nearby, as well as from other widely dispersed weapons protecting an auxiliary military airfield and several barracks complexes. Each of these facilities had been previously attacked, most notably in a February 1945 raid by B-24s that had inadvertently killed or injured some 100 Allied prisoners of war forced by the Japanese to work in the refinery and surrounding sugar cane fields. In response to the earlier air raids, the anti-aircraft sites had recently been refurbished and at least one large-caliber gun was thought to be radar-directed. To negate that particular threat, the B-32s would drop “rope,” long streamers of thin aluminum foil intended to overwhelm the Japanese gun-laying radar with false returns. The Lady is Fresh would attack the main anti-aircraft site with seventy-eight 260-pound fragmentation bombs, after which 528 would hit the refinery complex itself with forty 500-pounders.
The mission launched on time and the Dominators arrived over the target to find “CAVU”—clear and visibility unlimited—conditions. The Lady is Fresh made her defense-suppression run at 15,000 feet, dropping rope as she went in. The frags began impacting about 200 feet past the gun emplacement, more than close enough to be lethal, and then marched across the adjacent barracks complex. The second Dominator was close behind, and managed to unload thirty of her 500-pounders on the refinery before a shackle malfunction in her bomb bay prevented the last ten weapons from dropping. As 528 turned off the target and salvoed41 the hung-up bombs, her crew saw several solid hits within the boundaries of the sugar plant. Within minutes a plume of greasy black smoke had risen to an altitude of 5,000 feet.
The attack was not entirely one-sided, however; the crews of both Dominators noted intense anti-aircraft fire being directed at them during their bombing runs. Because 528 did not use any sort of radar countermeasure, the rounds being aimed at her were, as the narrative mission report later dryly stated, “correct as to altitude and course with accurate tracking during the run,” and several detonated close enough to bounce the aircraft around. The rope dropped by The Lady is Fresh, on the other hand, prevented the Japanese gun-laying radar from maintaining an accurate plot, and the few ack-ack rounds that jostled her were essentially “luck shots.” Neither aircraft was damaged by the enemy fire, and both returned safely to Floridablanca.42
Mission 10
The penultimate Dominator combat-test mission was flown by Hobo Queen II on the night of June 23–24 and was in essence a replay of the inconclusive June 18 long-range, night shipping-interdiction strike. The general target area was the mouth of the Canton River, between Macau and Hong Kong, ranging as far inland as Canton.43 It would be another long flight, covering some 1,500 miles and lasting upward of eleven hours. Hobo Queen II would be carrying nine 500-pound bombs, and the intention—as it was on June 18—was to attack enemy shipping from relatively low altitude using the radar bombing system.
Unfortunately, the results of the tenth mission mirrored those of the sixth. Hobo Queen II’s radar only detected one vessel, and because it was outside the FEAF-designated blind-bombing zone—a measure instituted to prevent inadvertent attacks on ships of noncombatant nations entering or leaving Portuguese-owned, and thus neutral, Macau—it was not attacked. Tony Svore, the pilot in command on the mission, decided to hit the alternate target, a Japanese airfield on the near-shore island of Sanchau,44 sixteen miles southwest of Macau. Unlike the brilliantly lit up Portuguese colony, the entire Chinese mainland was completely blacked out and, in addition, the airfield was blanketed by fog. Neither situation proved a hindrance, however, for the target was acquired and bombed from 10,000 feet using the AN-APQ-13 radar. Hobo Queen II dropped rope as a precaution, and was not fired on. After salvoing three hung-up bombs into the sea, Svore turned the big bomber for home.45
Mission 11
The Lady is Fresh and Hobo Queen II had the honor of flying the last scheduled Dominator combat-test mission, an event the trouble-plagued 528 missed because of an engine problem. The strike would take the big bombers back to Formosa, this time to hit several railway bridges near the north coast harbor complex at Kiirun. The crews were briefed that there was a high probability they would be intercepted by Japanese fighters flying from several fields in the area, and that the harbor and the bridges were protected by radar-directed anti-aircraft guns of varying calibers. The ordnance load for the mission consisted of 1,000-pound bombs: a full load of twelve in The Lady is Fresh and nine in Hobo Queen II.
The two Dominators took off from Floridablanca just after 8 A.M. on June 25 and followed the usual course northeast across the Luzon Strait until they sighted Formosa’s southernmost tip. The aircraft gradually gained altitude as they followed the island’s east coast northward, reaching the target area some three and a half hours after takeoff. Kiirun was almost completely obscured by clouds, but Hobo Queen II was able to bomb visually through a small hole in the undercast. Not able to find a similar hole, The Lady is Fresh instead bombed the nearby town of Giran.46 Contrary to the warnings issued during the mission briefing, there was no enemy interference and the two B-32s had an uneventful flight back to Luzon.47
THE END OF THE eleven-mission Dominator combat test—two weeks earlier than scheduled and with no personnel casualties or significant damage to the B-32s—triggered the writing of three separate summary reports.
Though project commander Frank Cook’s report to Brigadier General Crabb at V Bomber Command pointed out dozens of “must fix” items, Cook’s overall opinion of the aircraft was generally favorable and he made a point of emphasizing how much of an improvement the B-32 was over the B-24. Lieutenant Colonel Stephen D. McElroy48 was also cautiously positive about the Dominator in his report to Army Air Forces headquarters, saying “the B-32 airplane in its present condition is suitable for combat operations in this theater” and once corrections were made to some of its subsystems the aircraft would also be suitable for unrestricted combat operations elsewhere within Far East Air Force’s area of responsibility. The third report on the results of the combat test, however, was anything but positive. In the evaluation that he forwarded to Proving Ground Command, Major Henry S. Britt—who had spent virtually all of his time on the crew of the trouble-plagued 528—stated that the Dominator “in its present condition is not a suitable combat weapon to pursue the war with Japan.” Although Britt suggested dozens of key fixes that might over time make the aircraft a better bomber, the overarching tone of his report was negative and, not surprisingly, his dislike of the B-32 was palpable.49
The end of the official Dominator combat test did not, as Britt fervently hoped, result in the termination of B-32 flight operations. Indeed, follow-on combat missions were being planned and executed even as he, Cook, and McElroy were writing their reports. A planned raid on Formosa’s Heito alcohol plant on July 4 had to be cancelled when both Hobo Queen II and 528 were grounded by mechanical glitches, but all three Dominators were able to participate in a July 6 strike aimed at a sugar refinery outside Takao Town, a por
t city on Formosa’s southwest coast.50 The fact that the three B-32s were able to undertake the mission didn’t guarantee its success, however. The Dominators carried a total of thirty-three 1,000-pound bombs, but a radar-targeting error made by V Bomber Command’s chief bombardier—along on the raid as a “distinguished guest”—meant that “he was able to hit Formosa with only six of the total bombs dropped. No damage was done, nothing was accomplished.”51 All twenty-seven of the other bombs missed the sugar refinery and fell harmlessly in the ocean. And on July 13 The Lady is Fresh was recalled from a night shipping-search mission because of unusually bad weather over much of the South China Sea.
These less-than-impressive missions did not adversely affect the B-32’s future in Far East Air Forces. Some three weeks earlier, on June 23, Wells had received Movement Order 369 from Fifth Air Force headquarters directing him to begin preparations to move the 312th Group headquarters element and the 386th and 387th squadrons to Okinawa, recently secured by U.S. forces after three months of vicious combat against the defending Japanese. The assumption that both of the former A-20 squadrons were still intended to become full-fledged B-32 units was confirmed when on July 14 V Bomber Command directed the 386th to continue transition training for former A-20 and B-24 crewmen, and notified Cook and Wells that six additional B-32s would arrive from the United States during the remainder of July and in August. The members of Cook’s test detachment were to remain in theater to help operate the existing aircraft and aid in the transition training. When enough trained crews were available for all nine Dominators the 386th would be officially redesignated from a “Light” to a “Very Heavy” bombardment squadron and would presumably join the aerial assault on the Japanese Home Islands.
The decision to continue B-32 combat operations was far more the result of political maneuvering in Washington than it was of military necessity in the Pacific. The B-29 groups in the theater were already doing a fine job of reducing much of Japan to smoking rubble, and adding a squadron or two of Dominators to the mix would not appreciably affect either the conduct or the outcome of the air war. Though Hap Arnold well understood this, he had other aspects of the issue to consider. The Army Air Forces commander had supported the Dominator’s development despite the program’s history of delays and design deficiencies and in defiance of the officially stated opinions of a considerable number of influential individuals both within the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. He was therefore understandably loathe to discard the B-32—to do so would at best be a tacit admission of extremely poor judgment on his part and at worst might be seen as flagrant waste of vital national resources. Though the Dominator’s shortcomings were well documented even before the combat test, the fact that it had actually been able to bomb enemy targets allowed Arnold to justify the time, effort, and money that had been put into the big bomber. The formal decision to add the B-32 to the American air armada that was pummeling Japan in preparation for the planned invasion had therefore already been taken well before the three summary reports of the combat test arrived in Washington.
The practical effect of that decision for the men of the 386th and 387th squadrons was a further ratcheting up of the already busy transition-training program. The late July arrival from the United States of a fourth Dominator—42-108530, ferried over by a crew commanded by Captain Byron K. Boettcher—helped ensure that Floridablanca’s runway was kept active with B-32s departing on or returning from crew-familiarization flights and practice bombing missions. The continuing load-out of equipment and the progressive tear-down of the 312th’s bivouac area in preparation for the pending move to Okinawa also kept people busy, though Wells attempted to reduce the frantic pace by ordering occasional afternoon “stand-downs” so his men could play softball and volleyball and drink a few beers.
On August 3 and 4 the ground echelons of the 386th and 387th squadrons and most of the group headquarters staff were transported by trucks to the sprawling port of Subic Bay, twenty miles southwest of Floridablanca. On the afternoon of the fifth, the two 328-foot-long Navy landing ships that would carry the men and their belongings to Okinawa, LST-745 and LST-801, edged up onto the beach and dropped their bow ramps. Boarding began at 7 P.M. and was completed in a relatively quick twelve hours. The LSTs then moved back out into the bay, and just after daylight they steamed into the South China Sea as part of an Okinawa-bound convoy.
It is likely that many of the men embarked on the 1,000-mile, week-long voyage from Luzon to the Ryukyu Islands assumed the trip would not be a pleasant experience, given that the flat-bottomed, blunt-bowed LSTs were notoriously “lively” even in calm seas. But it is equally likely that more than a few were looking forward to a few days of relaxation, the kind that would largely come from the apparently endless games of poker and craps that seemed to spring up in those times whenever American service members were confined aboard troop transports.
As they lay in their cramped below-decks bunks, or stood on deck and gazed out at the passing sea, or found out-of-the-way places to sit quietly and write a few lines to loved ones, many of the men on that passage to Okinawa were wondering just how much longer the war in the Pacific might last. The Nazis had surrendered in Europe three months earlier; Japanese forces had been rolled back virtually everywhere and their nation was being mercilessly pounded from the air. Although most Americans in the Pacific Theater fervently hoped that the men in power in Tokyo would see that all was truly and irrevocably lost and that there was no point in continuing the fight, the fanatic tenacity with which the Japanese had thus far defended every foot of ground against the advancing Allied forces indicated that a swift conclusion to the conflict was highly unlikely. Indeed, the men of the two bomb squadrons had already been told that they would be supporting the coming invasion of the Home Islands, and some of the more pessimistic men in the unit were predicting that they might be home for Christmas—in 1946.
But then, on the morning of August 7, those aboard the LSTs heard the truly startling news that a single bomb, an atomic bomb, dropped from a B-29 the day before had obliterated the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Most of the GIs and their Navy hosts had no clue what “atomic” meant, but they all realized that the new weapon was a potential game-changer, something that could dramatically shorten the war. Men waited anxiously for news of a Japanese surrender, yet no such announcement came. The Soviet Union’s August 8 declaration of war against Japan seemed to bode well, and when it was announced over the ships’ loudspeakers late on August 9 that another atomic bomb been dropped on Japan, this time on Nagasaki, the general consensus among the men on both ships was that a cessation of hostilities would be announced at any moment.
But that long-awaited announcement was never made, and on August 12 the two LSTs dropped their ramps on an Okinawa beach. As the men of the 386th and 387th ground echelons came ashore they were met by Captain Woodrow Hauser, the 386th’s communications officer and leader of the advance party, who directed them to board waiting trucks for the ride to their new home, the airfield at Yontan. Built by the Japanese 19th Air Sector Command in 1944 as part of a larger plan to turn Okinawa into a giant air base complex from which navy aircraft—the vast majority of them kamikazes52—would attack American naval units supporting the invasion, Yontan (known to the Japanese as Kita) and the nearby Kadena (Naka) airfield had been abandoned without a fight when the Japanese 32nd Army’s 44th Independent Mixed Brigade withdrew from the area in April.53 By the time the ground echelons of the 386th and 387th arrived on August 13, Yontan’s bivouac area remained a sea of mud but the existing main 4,000-foot runway had been repaired, lengthened by 1,000 feet, and resurfaced by the U.S. Navy’s 87th Construction Battalion. The “Seabees” had also constructed a 7,000-foot-long heavy bomber runway and were nearly finished building a second one parallel to the first. The entire complex was in almost constant use by a variety of Army, Navy, and Marine Corps squadrons.
Yontan was also already home to three of the 386th’s four B-32s—The Lady is Fresh, Hobo Queen
II, and 528—and a C-47 transport carrying the squadron and group headquarters staffs had arrived at Yontan shortly before the ground echelon personnel came ashore from the LSTs, though 42-108530 had remained at Floridablanca for some minor modifications. Moreover, the Dominators were already being prepped for combat missions; despite the widespread hope among American military personnel that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would lead to an immediate Japanese surrender, no such capitulation was forthcoming. Until Tokyo gave some official signal that it was prepared to agree to the unconditional surrender terms set out in the Allies’ Potsdam Declaration, there would be no letup in the Allied campaign against Japanese forces wherever they were encountered.54
For the B-32 crews of the 386th Bomb Squadron the practical result of Japan’s failure to capitulate in a timely manner was, simply put, business as usual. On the morning of August 13 FEAF headquarters directed that the Dominators continue “routine operations” against the enemy, but left it up to the 312th Group’s intelligence and operations staffs to decide what type of sorties would be flown, and where.
The decision was made that the Dominator’s fourteenth combat mission—and the first from Okinawa—would be a single-aircraft anti-shipping sweep of the East China Sea. On the night of August 13–14, 528 took off from Yontan with a load of nine 500-pound bombs, headed northwest toward Shanghai and China’s wide Yangtze River delta. The bomber proved to be uncharacteristically well-behaved for most of the mission, and her crew sighted and radar-bombed a small ocean-going vessel before turning for home. However, the B-32’s gremlins woke up as she was on final approach to Yontan—the aircraft’s right outboard engine caught fire, almost certainly because of either an oil leak or an exhaust stack problem, both of which had been continuing issues for all three of the combat-test aircraft. Though the Dominator landed safely, the fire destroyed the engine nacelle and all its associated systems, and 528 was out of commission for several days.55
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