The Ragged, Rugged Warriors

by Martin Caidin

  “We had little use for these parachutes, for the only purpose they served for us was to hamstring our cockpit movements in a battle. It was difficult to move our arms and legs quickly when encumbered by chute straps. There was another, and equally compelling, reason for not carrying the chutes into combat. The majority of our battles were fought with enemy fighters over their own fields. It was out of the question to bail out over enemy-held territory, for such a move meant a willingness to be captured, and nowhere in the Japanese military code or in the traditional Bushido (Samurai code) could one find the distasteful words, ‘Prisoner of War.’ There were no prisoners. A man who did not return from a flight was dead. No fighter pilot of any courage would ever permit himself to be captured by the enemy. It was completely unthinkable.”!

  And there were times when our own fighter pilots, many of whom would never cut down a man in a parachute, grazed the dividing line of the unwritten code of fighter pilot conduct—as in this case, related by Major Robert S. Johnson, Thunderbolt pilot of the famed 56th Fighter Group, which flew in Europe during World War II. In this incident Major Johnson, who shot down 28 German fighters in aerial duels, describes one air battle:

  “. . . To get any strikes on me the Kraut first had to turn inside me, and then haul his nose up steeply to place his bullets ahead of me. The Focke-Wulf just didn’t have it. At 8,000 feet he stalled out while the Thunderbolt roared smoothly; I kicked over into a roll and locked onto his tail.

  “He was coming at me! I had slipped into firing position when he whipped around in a 180-degree turn; I’ve never seen a tighter or quicker turn in a fighter—any fighter—in my life. That man was good! He didn’t even turn, I thought, just suddenly reversed his flight and ran at me. Several times we rushed at each other, and then I started firing inside bursts as he weaved toward the land. It worked. Twice he ran into a stream of my bullets. The Focke-Wulf snapped over in a steep turn and ran for the coastline.

  “I didn’t want this boy to reach home. The canopy leaped into the air as the pilot jerked the release; I pulled around tight to get my bullets into him before he could get out of the airplane. He had one leg outside the cockpit when the slugs smashed him back inside. [Italics added.] That’s one man who would never sight again on our planes; if I hadn’t gotten him, then he certainly would have shot down several of our fighters or bombers. He was as good as I’d ever met.

  “Number Twenty-three!”2

  Of all the incidents that reveal what men will do under the trying circumstances of war, none better suits our purpose than a brief study of the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, carried out from March 1 to 3, 1943. Every fighter and bomber that could be flown by the Fifth Air Force, and elements of the Australian air units in the area—137 planes in all—hammered at the Japanese fleet of 17 vessels carrying 5,000 troops of the 51st Division.,

  When the day-and-night battering of the Japanese convoy ended, every one of eight transports, as well as a service vessel, and four of eight destroyers had gone to the bottom. Commander Masatake Okumiya noted of the battle that: “Desperately needed supplies littered the Bismarck Sea, and some three thousand corpses floated in the oily, bloody waters. . . . Our losses for this single battle were fantastic. Not during the entire savage fighting at Guadalcanal did we suffer a single comparable blow.”3

  The crippling loss of life—among Japanese reinforcements needed so badly on New Guinea—was acclaimed throughout the United States. The Fifth Air Force, along with Australian twin-engine Beaufighters, had blasted their way to a sensational victory over the enemy.

  But the newspapers did not tell how the waters of the Bismarck Sea came to be littered with so many bodies— many more than could be expected to be killed during the bomb and strafing attacks against the Japanese ships. The truth—as it came out much later—is that we threw out the nearest window the “accepted” rules of conduct by which we fought, and did everything we could to slaughter the Japanese survivors in the water.

  During March 4, our planes searched far and wide for any surviving vessels. Douglas A-20 Havoc light bombers and the heavily gunned Beaufighters (four cannon and six machine guns each) were given the roughest job of all.

  The American and Australian planes swept up and down the Bismarck Sea, shooting at any sign of life. Cannon shells and streams of bullets tore into Japanese on life rafts, floating in the water, and huddled together in lifeboats. The water was whipped and churned into a bloody froth, the blood mixing with chunks of flesh and the oil from the sunken ships. When nothing was seen to move in the seas, the repeated strafing runs ended.

  Oh, it’s all there in the official record—described by Major Edward F. Hoover, assistant operations officer of the 5th Bomber Command:

  “This was the dirty part of the job. We sent out A-20s and Beaufighters to strafe lifeboats. It was rather a sloppy job, and some of the boys got sick. But that is something you have to learn. The enemy is out to kill you and you are out to kill the enemy. You can’t be sporting in a war.”

  BACKGROUND TO DISASTER

  The heavy bombing strikes of Japanese bombers and fighters against Nanking and other Chinese cities in 1937 and 1938 received attention throughout the world. Horrific newspaper stories emerged from the smoke and dust that spread over the cities, and there were flashes of interest in newsreel scenes. This level of spectator involvement invoked discussion, but little else. Sated with reports of the war in Spain, with the flexing of German muscle in Europe, and with the everyday problems of a world first sensing the possibility of a massive conflict igniting in Europe and Africa, the average citizen didn’t afford China and its internal hells much more than a passing glance.

  Thus few people understood the magnitude of the punishment meted out from the air to the cities of China. There were formations of bombers with fighter escorts that numbered well over one hundred planes on a single strike. Attacks of this size became common rather than rare, and the Chinese came to hate the sight of the perfectly held formations in the sky. The Japanese droned overhead with flight-school precision in their maneuvers, V upon V, dropping their explosive missiles with a casual accuracy that was frightening to behold. On odd occasions the formations split, the pilots sliding the planes down into long dives, striking out at airfields and other targets, and giving their impatient gunners the opportunity to cut loose with their own weapons.

  In the initial phases of the attack the Chinese, under the impatient tutelage of Claire L. Chennault, struck with stunning effectiveness against the Japanese raiders. In the air war in China prior to December 7, 1941, such incidents were, for the Chinese, great moments to remember against a series of uncontested poundings from the enemy.

  Through these years, the Japanese were doing much more than attacking the Chinese. They were, in fact, honing the fine edge of their airpower. China was to them a vast training ground, and the experimental station in which to discover faults and weaknesses, and to replace these weak links in their airpower chain with the equipment and the tactics required to make Japanese airpower second to none. In this endeavor they were unquestionably successful.

  The twin-engine bombers came over gleaming in the sun, their massed engines droning out a sonorous beat that to the Chinese far below became as easily recognizable as the arrival each morning of the sun. No one on the ground who watched those formations and the superb manner in which the Japanese sustained their flights, through Chinese flak and fighters, could for a moment doubt that Japanese pilot and aircrew training was of the highest caliber.

  In the first few days and weeks the Chinese rose to do battle, and they cut Japanese formations to ribbons, inflicting devastating losses. These losses the Japanese accepted philosophically; this was the only way to learn. The mettle of their airpower could be tested only in this fashion, and the Chinese discovered that the Japanese were swift to learn. The sight of large formations of Japanese fighters providing escort was proof—as was the sudden crippling toll of the defending Chinese fighter airplanes. In eve
ry battle where the air defense was given, the Japanese fighter pilots swooped eagerly to accept the challenge. They seemed to rush with all possible speed in order to come to grips with the enemy.

  The Chinese learned, also, that the Japanese fighter pilots were the very best of all the enemy airmen. Their individual skill, their discipline, and their implicit faith in their fighter aircraft added up to a terrible combination. Once the Japanese fighters were on the scene, China’s swift successes of the opening days ceased. Only when the Chinese pilots could elude the Japanese fighters and strike swiftly at the bombers, then dive away for safety, could China hope for success in the air. For to come to grips with the Japanese fighters was to accept the naked possibility of disaster, and all too often this was the result. Finally, the bombing raids settled into a new pattern.

  Most of the strikes were carried out without interference by Chinese interceptors. High over the land, the bombers droned steadily, while above them were the fighters in their slow S-tums, weaving back and forth, hungry predators waiting impatiently for the bombers to complete their missions. It was then that the Mitsubishis, denied their taste of battle in the sky, were unleashed.

  Entire cities lay naked before them. Chinese antiaircraft defenses were sometimes heavy, but rarely effective, and the Japanese fighter pilots quickly accepted the challenge by racing low over the cities, skimming rooftops, and almost flying down broad streets and avenues. They cut down anything in their sights as they shot low over alleys, shooting up people, cars, stores, buildings, animals —anything. Incendiary bullets started new fires to add to those of the bombers—and it was the fires that especially attracted the fighters. Fire in a Chinese city meant a swift spreading of the flames; it meant panic, and people rushing into the streets to escape the leaping flames. The fires therefore provided the Japanese fighters with targets—and the Mitsubishis raced up and down the streets and alleys, sending bullets into the people as they fled the burning structures. The effect, as described by witnesses, was like watching winged boomerangs flashing back and forth, slashing and cutting up human beings wherever they could be found.

  Nanking was the first to be struck, and if the records from that war are true, it was the most heavily bombed of the Chinese cities. Like all big metropolitan centers of China, each day it exuded the sounds, smells, and hectic activity of teeming life. It seemed almost as if the Chinese were trying to cram as much living as possible into the hours before the Japanese came. The cessation of that activity came with shocking suddenness, and always with the same introductory note—the moaning cry of sirens and the shrill cacophony of bells, gongs, and other noise-making devices being beaten with fearful anxiety.

  In that instant the city was plunged from one world into another, preparing for the tidal wave of sound, the bass thunder from over the horizon that presaged the arrival of the tearing explosions and the flames that inevitably followed. The already fast-paced activity of the city took on a frenzied beat. People rushed for shelters, clutching children, pets, and valuables close to them; they poured into doorways in a squeezing, shouting mass. Store fronts slammed shut with a clanging finality as shopkeepers bolted their doors and covered windows. Vehicles jerked to a stop alongside curbs or were simply abandoned in the streets as the frightened occupants sought shelter. Streetcars and busses were emptied within seconds. Like millions of rats abandoning a sinking ship —which, to these people, the exposed space of Nanking was to become—they scurried under cover to escape the inevitable rain of bombs and bullets.

  Not all, however. Along the ragged edges of the city there was a different kind of exodus. The outskirts of Nanking were filled with ramshackle buildings that offered little protection against the enemy, and the people sought their safety in flight. The streets and alleys, the roads and paths and country lanes were filled quickly with flowing tendrils. Closer examination revealed the flowing mass and its spreading tributaries to be thousands upon thousands of Chinese, rushing to the safety of open country.

  Such safety was an illusion. When the bombs were spent and the twin-engined Mitsubishis had turned for home, the fighters were unleashed. To the Japanese pilots the masses of people densely packed along the narrow roads were prime targets, juicy pulps to be burst open with hosing streams of machine-gun fire. The fighters flashed sunlight off their wings as the pilots half-rolled and plunged from the sky, the roar of engines blending with the growing cry of the wind, until both became a keening shriek that was unmistakable to all below.

  To a pilot, people running on the ground are figures in the slowest of motions. A nudge of a rudder can sweep a path measured by the width of hundreds of human beings. Caught in the murderous crossfire of Japanese fighters sweeping in from opposite sides of the roads, the Chinese dashed hysterically off those roads and into the open fields, the marshy soil and the paddies bordering the thoroughfares. There they stumbled and floundered as stuttering sounds spat from the sky, and the sprays of bullets churned the water into rows of small white fountains stained with red. The toll from the strafing attacks reached into the hundreds, and then climbed into the thousands. . . .

  The Chinese during the growth of Japanese airpower had not remained idle in their critical need to defend their land in the air. Unable to build their own defenses in the form of fighter aircraft, pilots, and operational systems, they turned to other nations. Thus foreign missions and advisers were an old tale to China. The country’s desperation exposed it to the greed of hundreds of foreigners who flocked from around the world to commit financial rape as Chiang Kai-shek made desperate attempts to build fighting strength for China.

  In July of 1936, William McDonald and Luke Williams, military air advisors to China, conferred with Madame Chiang Kai-shek; the Generalissimo’s wife functioned as the acting chief of the Chinese Air Force. In their meeting the two Americans prevailed upon Madame Chiang to retain Claire L. Chennault as an advisor to the country. They emphasized not only Chennault’s tremendous personal piloting skill and his extensive experience in leadership and tactics, but also the fact that there were a sufficient number of Americans then in China, whose value could be greatly enhanced behind the strong leadership of Chennault.

  By the spring of 1937, the ex-captain of the Army Air Corps was on his way to the Asiatic land. Traveling by way of Japan, Chennault arrived finally in Shanghai, where he was met by Roy Holbrook, like Chennault also a former Air Corps pilot, but a man who had already spent sufficient years in China to know the political byways of the strange country. Holbrook wasted no time, and within several days Chennault was fully aware of why his services Were so critically needed.

  The basis of it was the very corruptness of China and the great majority of its officials, from the small-town politician to the major figureheads who wielded influence for personal gain—and the nation be hanged. The Chinese Air Force itself was a travesty. Its officers to a large extent were infected by the corruption that had so effectively diseased the other branches of government, with so few truly patriotic Chinese among them that attempts to create a modern airpower force were doomed to failure. Rivalry among ranking officers was both bitter and vicious. Individual capability counted for little, if anything, in the selection of officer personnel; the essential requirements were political connections, an influential family, and the key lubricant of Chinese politics—negotiable currency.

  These men in uniform carried on a cutthroat battle to gain power in the form of controlling large blocs of men and aircraft, and in this struggle the Japanese as the enemy remained far down on the list of priorities.

  Men who carried the rank of officers and the status of pilots bore their personal animosities with them into their cockpits. Their flying, instead of being developed into team concepts and combat tactics, remained for the most part a free-wheeling adventure in which the leaders disdained the needs of the Chinese Air Force and flew with their personal retinues, who would follow them anywhere. Men returning from battle were far more likely to spin outrageous lies as to
their deeds than they were to provide an honest assessment of their conflicts with the enemy. Thus it proved impossible to ascertain with any degree of validity whether or not the existing Chinese air units could be the basis of future effective defenses against the Japanese.

  Chennault and a small, picked group spent several months in a flying survey of Chinese bases, training camps, remote outposts, supply, and communications system, and other elements typical of any operational air force. What Chennault encountered, as he and his team traversed much of China in Douglas biplanes, left him scant reason for reassurance. The majority of Chinese pilots not only pursued activities guaranteed to further their own careers— at due cost to their air force—but were desperately in need of advanced training to qualify them as safe pilots, let alone men suited for combat.

  As Chennault gathered his information, the threat of major Japanese military activity within China loomed greater on the horizon, until it brooded over the nation like a tremendous thunderstorm. The Japanese in their actions had become almost disdainful of the Chinese, and daily flaunted their military strength in acts that would have outraged and provoked any other nation into immediate steps for war.