The Ragged, Rugged Warriors

by Martin Caidin

  During the Guadalcanal campaign, in which the 67th Fighter Squadron fought with eight Marine and Navy fighter units, the P-400s of the 67th quickly became identified as perhaps the worst fighters in the Pacific (although the British might have argued that they had the worst machine ever put together in the Brewster Buffalo).

  In the first combat action over the island, two P-400s scrambled into the air with a pack of Grumman F4F Wildcats flown by the Marines. The chunky Grammans clawed swiftly for altitude, got above the Japanese bombers, and howled earthward—while the P-400s were still struggling to gain height. Well above them, the Marines shot down eight of the nine Japanese bombers.

  Bell P-39 Airacobras with heavy machine guns and a single 37-mm. cannon proved effective in attacks against ground forces and shipping of the Japanese— but in the air they were regarded by Zero pilots as “meat on the table.” (N.B. Poor original scan)

  The two P-400s were delighted to find a stray Zero fighter wandering about in a stupor, and they bounced him with everything they had. The Zero exploded to make it first blood for the 67th—but the Japanese almost as quickly returned the favor. As the combat report of the fight states:

  “Then the wingman discovered tracers passing his cockpit and a Zero on his tail. He had heard that ‘the Zero is so flimsily constructed, its wings will come off in a dive,* so he put his P-400 in a dive, making right aileron rolls on the way down. When he pulled out he looked back to see the pieces of the Zero floating down, but found that the Zero, defying all the intelligence reports to date, was still intact, and furthermore was still on his tail, shooting. It was another one of those things the 67th learned the hard way.

  “He screamed over his radio for help, but his leader, in the haste of takeoff, hadn’t time to plug in his earphones (or fasten his parachute harness or safety belt either). Finally the P-400s got together and the Zero broke away.”

  The principal missions assigned to the P-400 fighters were patrols—scheduled for cruising flights at 14,000 feet. It was an altitude particularly dangerous for the pilots— for two specific reasons. At this height the Zero fighter was in its prime and the P-400s reacted in sluggish fashion; they could struggle up a few thousand feet more, but that was all, and they were sitting ducks for the agile Mitsubishis. Even if the planes could go higher, the pilots were at their limit. Their fighters lacked oxygen. Since the P-400 was an export model intended for English use, it was equipped with the British high-pressure oxygen system—worthless for the systems used in American fighters. The 67th had screamed for months to get its oxygen equipment changed, but to no avail. The official report notes, “Oxygen should be used above 10,000 feet. Here, these pilots were flying two-hour patrols at 14,000 feet. They found that after twenty minutes they became groggy and punch drunk and had spots before their eyes.

  “Often, they flew two or three of these two-hour patrols a day. Once one of the pilots, who had lost sleep due to a bombing during the night and had no breakfast because the kitchen had been hit, flew three of these missions in succession, being sleepy, hungry, groggy and had to hand-crank his landing gear up and down each time because there was no interval for repairs.”

  There is no document more eloquent—and damning— than the official combat record of the 67th Fighter Squadron. The following excerpts tell “how it was” at Guadalcanal during the late summer of 1942, with the 67th’s outmoded fighter airplanes. No other record ever seen by this writer tells the story better.

  “On August 29, the pilots’ morale, which had held up through six months of continuous toil and trouble in New Caledonia, took a set-back. The P-400s were scrambled with the Grummans at noon to meet an expected wave of bombers. The Army formation climbed up to 14,000 feet and staggered around, looking closely at all spots within their vision to make sure they were just spots and not enemy formations. Then, they saw the enemy—3,000 feet above and out of reach. They saw his bombs hit, sending up geysers of smoke and debris and they saw the Marine Grammans hit the bombers. All the 67th could do was fly around, helpless. Discouraged, they went back to land. The whole field seemed to be afire. Grass was burning, two hangars built by the Japs were afire, several airplanes were burning and ammunition was exploding in every direction. The runway was swarming with men and strangely, seemed to have sprouted bushes. They found out why. The bushes were held by ground crews to mark bomb craters. The men would hold the bushes as long as they dared when a plane came in, then duck as it zig-zagged crazily down the pitted strip.

  “The field Was in a chaos of activity. Truck crews were hauling dirt to fill up the holes in the runway. Men were beating out grass fires with their only blankets. Litter bearers were hunting for the wounded. Men were shoveling dirt on the burning airplanes, about to explode any minute. Ground crews were rolling gas and oil drums around to the landed airplanes to refuel them by hand-crank. Ammunition was exploding everywhere, and the snipers were in trees across the river. All worked in silent fury at the enemy.

  “But what could the 67th do in its damned P-400s?

  “The next day, August 30th, it was to have its chance, it thought

  “The day's activity began, routinely enough, at midnight Four enemy destroyers were reported standing off the beach preparing to shell the field. All the pilots were aroused from their straw mats. The Navy dive bombers took off and the fighter pilots went down to their hangars to stand by. They sat around on ammunition boxes, chilly and sleepless, until dawn and nothing happened. Then they began to take off on their regular patrols. They flew the two-hour patrols until 11:30 a.m., when all planes were called in for reservicing. An enemy raid was expected at noon. The ‘coast watchers* up the way had reported *twenty or more single-engine planes’ headed for Henderson Field [on Guadalcanal].

  “This was the 67th’s chance! When the Grummans went up, the 67th scrambled all the planes it had in commission. Six of them were to cruise around the towering cumulus clouds at 14,000 feet and catch the dive bombers before they started down. Four more were to patrol over the boats at Tulagi at 1,500 feet and catch the Japs as they pulled out of their dives. Then P-400s were all the 67th had in flying condition.

  Marine F4F Wildcat whistles up and over in climbing attack against Zero fighter. Airacobras with inferior performance were used as either “bait” or “cover” in Wildcat-Airacobra sandwich combats against the Japanese—but the poor performance of the Airacobra destroyed most attempts to “box in” the enemy.

  “The six-plane formation had been searching for about half an hour at 14,000 feet and was already feeling oxygen-lack when the action began. The 67th didn’t attack; it was attacked, with Zeros and not the expected dive bombers. The Zeros dived down around a cloud and then zoomed up into the six P-400s from behind and below. There were about twenty of them.

  “The P-400s started turning into a Lufberry but there were more Zeros in the Lufberry than there were P-400sc Then the Grumman Wildcats came down from above and hit the Zeros. The mixup begaiL Zeros were everywhere, zippings darting and twistings climbing straight up, and practically making square turns. The 67th pilots, in their heavy, lumbering P-400ss felt like a herd of cows being attacked on every flank by agile wolves.

  “It was impossible to shake the Zeros by trying to maneuver. The only way was to head down into a clouds make a turn on instruments* and come out on top. Then try to get a burst at a Zero before three others jumped you. All over the sky P-400s were running for the clouds with two or three Zeros on their tails.....

  The next day only three of the original fourteen P-400s were in commission.

  “When the regular Jap aerial armada was reported on the way, the remaining P-400s were ordered by operations to take off and fly down around the island on a reconnaissance flight

  ‘The morale of the 67th had scraped the bottom.

  “They could not help thinking: *We can’t climb high enough to reach the bombers. We have already lost two pilots and half our planes proving what we already knew —that we can’t maneuver and
dogfight with the Zero* What good are we? Our enlisted men are risking their lives every day trying to get the planes patched up—for what? We’re just eating up food—and there’s not enough to go around anyway—and using up valuable gasoline* and the gas supply is getting lower every day. Hell, we can’t fight. When the Japs come we’re told to “go on reconnaissance.” What good are we?’

  “. . . the 67th was willing. It wanted to fight. But how?”

  They found out soon enough.

  Operations at Guadalcanal assigned the fighter of the 67th Fighter Squadron to ground-attack missions—strafing and bombing the Japanese on the ground and at sea< They did a hell of a job, too.

  But there was always the reminder that they couldn’t fight the enemy in the air, and that the Marines could— and did.

  “DUCEMUS”—“WE LEAD”

  “We Lead.”

  That was the war cry—with meaning—of the 22nd Bombardment Group, a hellbent-for-leather organization of men who flew a tough, fast bomber called the Marauder. They flew from Australia and Seven-Mile Drome at Port Moresby to strike at Japanese targets from Portuguese Timor to Lae and Salamaua, at Rabaul and other hornets’ nests of Japanese fighters and antiaircraft. Flying in early 1942, and through the summer of that painful year, they were the first airmen to start hitting the enemy on a consistent basis in his most strongly defended centers. While the Allies all about them foundered in the choppy sea of defeat, the 22nd’s Marauders acted like a bombing group that never accepted the fact that we were losing a war. Sometimes their losses were frightful, and certainly they were as crippled within their organization through lack of parts, supplies, and manpower as any other organization. But they kept on hitting the enemy, again and again, until the Japanese came to marvel at the grim courage of these pilots and their crews.

  And the 22nd did it all in a bomber that was considered so dangerous to fly that—while the 22nd pounded into Japanese targets—that same bomber was grounded in the United States as a killer! When Air Force headquarters finally got around to asking the men of the 22nd if they were having any serious difficulties with the Martin B-26 Marauder, they received their response in an enthusiastic chorus that amounted to “Hell, yes, we got problems. Send us more of the damned airplanes!”

  The sleek twin-engine Marauder was quickly earning a reputation in the States as the “widow maker.” The wags called the airplane the “Incredible Prostitute,” by virtue of the fact that its wings were so short the Marauder had no visible means of support* But the sleek lines, huge engines and propellers, and short wingspan also gave the Marauder the greatest speed of any medium bomber in the business—making firing passes more than difficult for the Zero fighters. The B-26 had a landing speed on its final approach that was almost as great as the combat cruising speed of other bombers.

  * There were a lot of pilots who called the Marauder a bitch and & killer,” remarked General Samuel E. Anderson (who commanded the Marauders in Europe during World War II). “But you could never prove it with guys like Walt Krell or Jerry Crosson [pilots with the 22nd]< They were wild about the B-26; they loved that airplane They could just about make the B-26 sit up and sing songs to them. There were pilots in the States who dreaded flying in the B-26 under normal conditions. Krell, Crosson and the other pilots in the 22nd Bomb Group could fly that thing better on one engine—which Stateside pilots often said was impossible—than most fliers could with both fans going.”2

  Gerald J. Crosson was one of the old B-26 pilots who had ferried the third production airplane from its Baltimore factory before the war (and later flew it in combat), and became one of the outstanding bomber pilots of the war.

  The 22nd made its headquarters at Garbutt Held near Townesville, Australia, dispersing its squadrons to Antill Plains and Reid River in the surrounding countryside* But this was strictly the home base;, to fly combat missions the men had to stage on from Australia to Seven-Mile at Port Moresby in New Guinea. refuel5 and then go after the Japanese still farther to the north. On April 5, 1942, the 22nd launched its first combat strike. This was a mission against the heavily defended bastion of Rabaul on distant New Britain Island. It was the first combat mission for the B-26 in any theater of the war, and also the first medium bomber attack against Rabuai, which had been officially listed as a target to be reserved for long-range heavy bombers. Top command didn’t have enough B-17s, so they tore up their official listings of targets and planes and gave the assignment to the 22nd

  Seven-Mile as an advance base was a crude, rough, miserable forward outpost, which the Japanese found delightful as a place for target practice by day and by night all through the week. It was worse than bad for the men who flew from Seven-Mile, and it was hell for the men who patched and fixed and worked to keep the planes going. The white-hot summer sun scorched the grass into dirty brown straw, blistered the air, and produced a savage combination of huge mosquitoes and the choking dust of the airstrip, and at the same time the dank and oppressive humidity of the nearby jungle and the sea.

  A good example of what the ground crews went through came one day with the sight, to crewmen returning from a raid, of two Buddhalike figures in the burned grass on one side of the airstrip. The figures were mechanics Charles Fuqua and Bill Spiker, sitting perfectly upright, legs crossed beneath their bodies, and sound asleep from exhaustion.

  If luck were with the ground crews (and the Zeros and bombers were busy elsewhere for a respite) they could get five or six hours* sleep; more often they averaged three hours’ sleep a night. The men used to say that you didn’t live at Seven-Mile; you existed. Bodies became caked with dirt, hair matted with grease, hands and faces packed with grime. Cuts and bruises along the body were common because the men used makeshift tools and often slipped and fell from their precarious working mounts.

  “I’ll never forget the men who worked on my plane and those of the squadron whenever we got to Moresby,** Crosson asserted. “You see and experience a lot of things in a shooting war, and ours consisted of a lot of pretty wild shooting. But it was those men on the ground who really got to me.

  “In the early days especially we didn’t have any facilities for the mechanics and ground crews at Seven-Mile. The sun was pure hell. It came down with an intensity that is just about impossible to describe. New Guinea under the best of conditions is only one step short of something for which you can develop a violent dislike, and these weren’t the best of conditions.

  “I’ve seen these men so battered by the sun that they couldn’t work on the planes during daylight. We were even lacking the proper clothes for them to wear. More than a few had broken out in huge, painful blisters on the necks, across their backs, and on other parts of their bodies.

  “Back in the States, they’d put a man into a hospital for something like that. Out here, they just kept right on working. But even the best of them couldn’t remain in the blistering sun in that condition. So they’d knock off work and try to sleep during the day, in order to work the night through without that sun tearing them up.”

  Walt Gaylor of 22nd B.G. Headquarters, on conditions at Port Moresby: “What Jerry describes is bad enough, but it doesn’t tell how insidious this became for them. When the sun hammered down, it was just too hot to sleep. They had to lie on their stomachs, face-down, because of their burned backs and necks. And the sweat just poured off them.

  “By night, with the sun down, they’d start to work. It was almost as hot, but at least they weren’t being burned. But then came the mosquitoes. . . . And those poor guys couldn’t wear shirts because of their blistered and raw skin, and there just wasn’t any salve or medicine for them, and so the whole night through they’d fair go out of their minds—but they worked and they put those planes in shape. Sometimes they broke off work at night. That’s when the Japanese hit us with bombers, and most everyone would run for the ditches and trenches. But not all. Some of those guys were so tired—the mechanics working on the airplanes—they said to hell with it and kept working. W
e had to order them under cover.

  “If they wanted to pick the real heroes of the 22nd, for my money, those are the people.”

  Through all this the men of the 22nd not only kept on working and fighting, but through some incredible strength shared by them all, they kept throwing themselves at the Japanese. General Anderson, who spent several weeks in 1942 with the 22nd, refers to their spirit as “the incredible morale of the men of the 22nd Bomb Group. And this was despite something that didn’t reflect credit on the Army Air Forces, or on the whole general military organization. These boys felt as though they had been written off by the United States. They were convinced that hardly anybody knew anything about them. I hate to say this, but it was largely the truth as far as the public was concerned. And despite all this, their morale was simply marvelous.

  “The more we saw of the wretched conditions, the more amazed we became at the evidence of this high morale. It didn’t seem possible that men could endure their privations, their terrible losses against the Japanese, their feelings of being abandoned by the United States, and still throw everything they had into the war against an enemy who outnumbered them, and against whom they fought without even a pretense at escort protection. There were also the so-called ‘little things' that can sap the morale of a fighting outfits which they endured.

  “For example, the shortage of supplies was so bad, the men even had to scrounge their clothing. They were a motley-looking group, with patched clothes and odd combinations of attire. Some of the men flew their missions with Australian shirts, cowboy boots, and sport shirts, simply because there wasn’t anything else to wear and they were glad to get this.

  *This was the outfit that got a hot emergency call to go to war. On the morning of December 8S 1941, they were ordered out with such a critical call they didn’t even have time to pack. As an indication of their dedication to duty, when they were told to get along and at once, they took their orders literally. They didn’t stop to talk it over or question what was happening. Some of these pilots just ran out to their planes and even took off in their bedroom slippers. They never had the chance to return home to get their gear; they stayed on the move, and they ended up by having to scrounge for the clothes to wear on their backs. . It was difficult—but wonderful—to reconcile the sights we ran across, in terms of their clothing, with their fabulous fighting record and their wonderful morale. Instead of looking shaggy, with their Australian bush hats and boots, and their wide grins, they even had & jaunty air about them.*’3