The Ragged, Rugged Warriors

by Martin Caidin

  The defense of the Netherlands East Indies had been predicated on extensive aerial reinforcements staging northward from Australia. Unfortunately, rampant confusion riddled the program for reinforcements from the start, and proved of inestimable aid to the Japanese.

  Many of the airplanes which were assembled by the day-and-night labor of mechanics and technicians never were able to get into combat in time even to stave off what was clearly eventual defeat through the East Indies. The official combat document, The AAF in Australia, Army Air Forces Historical Studies, No. 9, notes that “the men assembled enough planes to begin training operations by the first of January, although the lack of certain essential parts at first rendered the planes practically useless for combat operations.” The official document notes, in reference to dive bombers needed desperately in the East Indies:

  “. . . after the fifty-two A-24s were assembled, it was discovered that certain pieces of armament were missing. A thorough search of the cargo unloaded at Brisbane disclosed no trace of the triggers, solenoids, and gun mounts. This exasperating situation caused at least one harassed lieutenant to rush around ‘frantically all day in his jeep trying to collect spare parts, and wildly beat his head when none were available.* The bitterness and disappointment of those pilots of the 27th Bombardment Group is reflected in their commander’s statement that the persons in America responsible for shipping the planes without the necessary parts were ‘subject to trial for criminal negligence.* ”4 No clearly defined boundary of operations existed through Malaya, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Timor, Celebes, the Philippines, New Guinea, and intermediate points during this time. Reaction to the pounding drives of the Japanese took place in scattered thrusts wherever the most likely targets seemed to appear, and the campaign carried out from Australia was one that encompassed strikes extending from New Ireland and the Bismarck Archipelago on the west all the way northwest to the Philippines.

  Some veteran groups arrived in Australia during February, for example, and were immediately sent out on missions covering the area just described. Men of the 88th Reconnaissance and 22nd Bombardment Squadrons of the 7th Bombardment Group had flown 168 patrol missions out of Hawaii for two months preceding their departure from that area. Pieced together into a squadron of 12 Fortresses, they flew from Hawaii in late February, moving south to protect the supply lines to Australia. They stopped in the Fiji Islands for five days to fly another 12 missions, arriving in Townesville, Australia, on February 18 and 19. Then for the next month the bomber crews flew reconnaissance and bombing missions without benefit of ground crews.

  It is all too easy to wax eloquent over the violent actions of combat, but much more difficult to grasp the feeling of utter weariness experienced by men such as these. After flying long missions at high altitude during the day, their strength sapped by the roar and vibration of the airplanes, and breathing thin air at operational heights, the combat personnel worked almost the night through to maintain and repair, refuel, rearm, and bomb up their large airplanes. Because there was no fighter protection available and antiaircraft facilities were a mockery of the term, it was necessary to disperse the B-17s into the Australian interior. Thus it became necessary for the crews to fly two separate flights—one from the interior to the Australian coast, and one from the coast to an advanced base—before they could take off on an actual mission.

  Despite these crippling obstacles, the crews kept their airplanes in battle condition and flew their missions. Six full crews of this squadron assembled above Magnetic Island on the morning of February 23 and began the long flight to carry out the first American bombardment of Rabaul, New Britain. The weather turned bad during the mission but did not deter the Fortresses from pressing home their attack. One large cargo vessel went to the bottom, another was damaged, and several Zero fighters were either destroyed or damaged. The large bombers fought off their attackers, sustaining wounds to three crew members. On the flight home, one Fortress exhausted its fuel and made a wheels-up belly landing 220 miles from Port Moresby, New Guinea; its exhausted and malaria-ridden crew did not return to their squadron until April 1.

  The official history of the AAF in Australia notes of these actions:

  “This American ‘offensive* strike from the east coast of Australia, though modest in scale, was nevertheless a ‘shot in the arm’ for the tired and outnumbered members of the Royal Australian Air Force who were attempting to oppose the Japanese advance through New Guinea and New Britain. To provide for the defense of New Guinea, New Britain, and the whole of Australia except Darwin [where defenses were provided by the British, Australians, New Zealanders, and Americans] the RAAF in January had a total of only forty-three operational aircraft— twenty-nine Hudsons, fourteen Catalinas, and no fighter airplanes. In addition, it had eighty Wirraways—advanced training planes—which, of course, were ineffective in operations against the enemy. With heavy losses being sustained daily in the New Guinea area, this small force was rapidly depleted, but by the end of January the members of the RAAF had already distinguished themselves in making the most of the little at their disposal.

  “The heavy Japanese attack on Rabaul on 20 January had seen five slow Wirraways rise to defend the Australian garrison against more than one hundred enemy planes. Although the Wirraways were lost after exacting their toll of five enemy aircraft, this action set the pattern for Australian air resistance during the first few months of 1942. Likewise, the action at Rabaul was typical of the enemy assaults on practically defenseless Australian positions throughout the Bismarck Archipelago. Following closely upon the heavy aerial bombardment, the Japanese on 22 and 23 January landed strong invasion forces at Rabaul and drove the Australian garrison of 1,400 men from their positions. At the same time, landings were made in the northern Solomons, and the bombardment of northern New Guinea continued. On 21 January enemy cruisers had shelled undefended Kavieng, New Ireland, while bombs were being dropped on Lorengau [capital of the Admiralty Islands] and on Madang and Salamaua, New Guinea. Lae, undefended capital of Northeast New Guinea, was subjected to forty-five minutes of heavy bombing and strafing by over sixty enemy aircraft on 22 January.. ..

  “Extending the range of their attacks still farther, the Japanese on 3 February bombed Port Moresby, capital of Papua, only 334 miles from the northern tip of Australia. For the defense of this strategic point in New Guinea the Australians had only one anti-aircraft battery and a dwindling handful of Hudson and Catalina planes. With this new penetration to the south by an enemy which was superior in numbers and in equipment, it was obvious that the northern coast, and perhaps even the whole, of New Guinea would be untenable. Mining prospectors who had pioneered in the gold fields of New Guinea and other civilians living on New Britain and islands of the northern Solomons had to leave their holdings and possessions in a hurried flight to safer territory on the Australian mainland. Throughout January and February every airplane in the area—both civilian and military—was pressed into service, with the result that more than two thousand men, women and children were rescued without the loss of a single life. “All the laws of civil aviation were flouted. Planes built to carry sixteen carried thirty-five. . . .’ Day after day the crazy rescue fleet of battered old transport planes that had freighted the mining dredges up to Edie Creek and Bulolo; of unwieldy old Ford monoplanes; of sleek, modem airliners; of two-seater Moths, and shabby, fabric-covered biplanes, joined with camouflaged bombers of the Royal Australian Air Force in ferrying backward and forward between Australia and the newest battle zone of the Pacific.

  A “scout-fighter” version of the Harvard training airplane, the Australian Wirraway, flown by courageous crews, attacked Japanese forces vastly superior in both quality and quantity. Some Wirraways— to the astonishment of both adversaries— actually shot down their opponents!

  “The continent to which these evacuated civilians were carried, however, was not beyond the reach of enemy air attacks... .”5

  And this the Japanese made shockingly eviden
t on February 19, when in two heavy raids they plastered the port area of Darwin with 125 bombers and 18 fighters. The devastation was tremendous. One American destroyer and two troop transports went to the bottom, as did four Australian vessels; another seven were damaged. Nine P-40s went down before Japanese guns, while on the ground seven bombers and two fighters went up in flames.

  The AAF official report on Australia notes:

  “Casualties were not heavy, but the far-reaching effects of the attack probably exceeded all enemy hopes.

  “Chief among the results was the denial to the Allies of the use of port facilities at Darwin, which were being used extensively in trans-shipping reinforcements and supplies to the troops in the Netherlands East Indies. In a broader sense, these two raids gave tangible proof of the enemy’s capability and intention of bringing the war to the continent of Australia. Because of the proximity of the newest enemy gains in the Netherlands East Indies the northwestern coast of Australia was no longer safe for military concentrations. Immediately following the Darwin attacks, therefore, the Australian army authorities ordered the demolition of Keats Airdrome, 130 miles southwest of Darwin, and ordered certain other west coast airdromes prepared for demolition.

  “These two enemy attacks had a dark foreboding about them which started the hurried movement of civilians from the west coast to the interior of Australia. Likewise, the attacks were portentous of the trend of events in the

  Netherlands East Indies, for it was becoming increasingly evident that Allied resistance could no longer continue . . .”3 #

  The “dark foreboding” became reality with the swift movement of the Japanese forces. By February 14 crack parachute troops dropping from Japanese bombers and transports were in control of Palembang, the center of the rich Sumatran oil fields. Six days later Japanese troops splashed ashore on Bali, the island east4of Java, and on Timor, the island lying between Java and the Australian mainland.

  Throughout the repeated invasion thrusts of the Japanese, the Fortresses operating out of Australia continued their desperate strikes at the enemy. Throughout January they attacked a wide variety of targets, from enemy warships to airfields. Japanese resistance on rare occasions was light or absent; most of the time the Zeros swarmed up to rip into the big bombers. The latter enjoyed a new defense against their opponents—the B-17E not only carried up to 13 .50-caliber machine guns, but it came equipped with an upper power turret, a power ball turret in the belly, and a tail position with two heavy guns. Two Fortresses in January, during attack against Japanese troopships in Menado Bay, were intercepted by 15 fighters; as usual, the Japanese in their attacks against the four-engine bombers made their attacks from the rear. This time the reaction of the American planes was not usual, and during the fight that lasted for more than an hour, the two Fortresses shot down six of the fighters.

  “During the engagement,” reported Vem Haugland, “Private Arvid B. Hegdahl, tail gunner on Major Conrad F. Necrason’s plane, was wounded severely in the leg. Master Sergeant Louis T. Silva, a forty-seven year old line chief of the 9th Squadron who asked to go along with his squadron commander on this first mission as a gunner, helped carry the wounded tail gunner forward for first aid, and himself was credited with shooting down three planes with a side gun. Silva was killed in an airplane accident in Australia five months later.

  “Necrason’s plane escaped major damage, but Lt. J. L. Dufrane’s had one engine shot out. The two Fortresses were refueling at Kendari when five Japanese fighters attacked the field, at 2:15 a.m. Major Necrason took off fought off three attackers, and reached Malang six hours later. Dufrane’s plane, which had not yet been serviced, was caught on the ground and destroyed.**

  Haugland describes a “particularly costly mission” carried out February 8, 1942, against Kendari installations. “Enemy aircraft set the B-17 piloted by Lieutenant Dufrane afire. Six men bailed out before the plane exploded.

  “Another B-17 exploded under heavy fire from enemy planes. Only one man parachuted from it. In another plane, a gunner was killed, while still another was so badly shot up about the tail section that it took two men to hold the controls. When the plane went into a spin, the copilot, navigator and tail gunner bailed out. The pilot brought the plane under control and landed safely with a wounded gunner aboard. Another plane was set afire but escaped destruction by jettisoning its burning bomb-bay tank. The B-17s shot down five enemy aircraft.”

  As the attrition of planes continued, Haugland reports, the “first Japanese bombers were not long in putting in their appearance over Java. There were heavy raids upon Malang, Madioen and Soerabaja, February 3. Thirty-one Allied aircraft, including four B-17s, were destroyed. Nine B-17s had left Malang shortly before to raid Balikpapan, but some of those still on the ground were loaded with bombs. Two of these were blown up. Another B-17 on a test flight failed to return, and was believed to have encountered the enemy formation of nine dive bombers and twenty high-level bombers. Another B-17 caught fire in the air. Five members of the crew bailed out, but the pilot managed to land the big ship on Arenda Island. A B-18 was shot down near Soerabaja and a B-17 shot down near Malang, with all seven members of the crew killed.

  “Reinforcements continued to trickle in. A new B-17E arrived from Africa February 10. Two more came on February 11. An LB-30 arrived via Africa February 12, and another came in from the Pacific February 15. A B-17 coming in from the Pacific overshot Singosari airdrome near Malang and smashed into another new B-17 which was stuck in the mud at the end of the runway. New pilots were continually having trouble with the muddy, rain-slick airstrips of Java, and the number of operational losses was high.”7

  Allied fighter strength in the Netherlands East Indies took a fearful beating at the hands of Japanese fighter pilots; many raids early in February helped to start the destruction of fighter strength by destroying dozens of fighters at Soerabaja. On February 3, American P-40s participated in their first intercept of the campaign. But the story of the P-40s in this theater left much to be desired.

  Forty of the desperately needed P-40 fighters in mid-January were ordered north from Australia by staging through Darwin and Koepang, their destination a secret airfield southeast of Djombang, near Soerabaja. Losses were heavy on the ferry mission. Japanese bombs destroyed two P-40s at Koepang during a surprise air raid. At Bali, off Java’s eastern tip, another five P-40s went up in flames on the ground. Several others were shot out of the air by Japanese fighters or were lost through engine failure. When the force reached Soerabaja, 13 out of the 40 P-40s were already stricken from the provisional fighter squadron. The fighters were attempting to land when the Japanese came over in a heavy air raid, causing the loss of still another P-40 fighter and reducing the arrival group to only 26 airplanes.

  Fighters and bombers made desperate attempts to hit the enemy invasion forces that kept pouring ashore at widely separated landing points throughout the many islands and extended shorelines. Throughout February 19 and 20, for example, heavy bombers, 16 P-40 fighters, and seven A-24 dive bombers hammered at the invasion force off Bali. Their efforts were courageous, but their effect negligible—the Japanese smashed their way swiftly through resistance to occupy Bali and its vital airstrips. That night a news broadcast from London boasted that the American planes had sent 15 Japanese warships and troop transports to the bottom, virtually wrecking the invasion fleet. The comment of the fliers who were involved is not printable.

  Japanese fighters and bombers staged into newly occupied airstrips throughout Sumatra, Malaya, Borneo, Celebes, Timor, and Bali; as quickly as they were readied for additional missions they thundered against every Allied airfield in Java. It did not take long for the Japanese to smash Allied resistance and the morale of the defenders. On February 22 Japanese planes caught a force of Fortresses on the ground at Malang and quickly destroyed five of the heavy bombers. One pilot noted that the raid “just about cleans that field out and reduces our air force by one-third. Our bombers have accomplished littl
e since Major Robinson was shot down a month ago. Too much caution and fear of what a Jap Zero can do to a B-17.”

  A last-ditch, desperate attempt to bring heavy fighter reinforcements to Java ended in disaster. Japanese bombers pounded the aircraft carrier Langley, with 32 P-40 fighters on deck, into blazing wreckage and sent her to the bottom. In the same convoy was the Seawitch, carrying 27 P-40s in crates. On February 28 the Seawitch reached Tjilatjap, on the south coast of Java. But the next day the Japanese landed on Java, and the Dutch destroyed the precious fighters in their crates to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

  In one blow we had lost 59 fighters, not one of which ever got into the air.

  Dutch pilots counted heavily on the performance of the Curtiss-Wright CW-21 Demon, an American export fighter renowned for rapid climb and agility in dog-fighting. But the Zero proved faster, even more maneuverable and much more heavily armed; the combat-proven Japanese pilots easily crushed their opposition.

  The Japanese lost no time in destroying what Allied airpower was left. At Jogjakarta four B-17s disappeared in flames from enemy bombs. All the remaining P-40 fighters, along with six Brewster Buffaloes and five Hawker Hurricanes, were concentrated on what had been their secret airfield. Japanese bombers waited until the planes were on the ground, then swept in with a low-level attack and destroyed every fighter.

  On March 3 the Japanese caught Allied planes attempting a final mass aerial evacuation from Broome, Java. The harbor was crowded with flying boats and the airstrip crammed with American, British, and Dutch planes. It took only 12 Zero fighters to wreak terrible destruction. They caught the flying boats heavily overloaded with passengers, most of them women and children refugees, just as the flying boats were trying to take off. Almost all the big airplanes were shot into sinking, flaming wreckage— killing some 200 aboard. A B-24 in the air with 20 men aboard was blown out of the sky with the loss of all 20. On the ground, the strafing Zeros burned and destroyed two B-24s, two B-17s, six Dutch planes, three British, and one Australian aircraft.