The Ragged, Rugged Warriors

by Martin Caidin

  The Marauders had to make their bombing runs over the cream of Japanese fighter opposition—the Zeros flown by the top aces of Japan, operating out of Lae, Salamaua, and Rabaul. Lieutenant Louis W. Ford* stressed the fact that, in spite of the appalling losses suffered in combat against the Japanese, the group had no choice but to continue driving deeply—without fighter escort—into skies controlled by the enemy.

  * Shot down on April 11, 1942, by Zero fighters during a raid against Rabaul. Six weeks later Ford and his crew, after an incredible saga of survival, walked out of the jungle and returned to their group.

  “The Japanese at that time,” he explained, “enjoyed a solid air superiority over New Guinea. ... I hesitate to be specific [today], of course, but it’s completely accurate to say that our average losses approximated between fifteen and twenty-five percent per mission. [Ten percent losses per mission are considered ‘prohibitive.’]

  “Some of our men were incredible. It was during this period that Carl King of the 33rd Squadron gained quite a reputation for carrying along his toothbrush and brushing his teeth under attack. Jay Zeamer had quite a reputation also. He was in the 19th Squadron. He used to wear an old-fashioned helmet, the tin-hat kind. He would go to sleep—literally—while under fighter attack. One of the pilots once had Jay for a copilot and as the Zeros were blasting in and shooting them up, this pilot had to keep punching Zeamer on the chest to keep him awake as the Zeros were pouring bullets and cannon shells into the airplane. Jay Zeamer was later shifted over to the 43rd Bomb Group and his total lack of nerves earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor during a rough mission in the Solomons.”4

  Whereas combat missions always have their obvious dangers—of the fatal variety—even flying over New Guinea proved to be a dangerous adventure, for the mountain range jutted to well above 10,000 feet. The passes through which the heavily loaded planes sometimes tried to slide were rarely below 7,000 feet and thick, turbulent clouds often covered the area.

  At Moresby itself, the only strip, among several, that could handle the Marauders was Seven-Mile. “Everything there was primitive,” related John Richardson, 22nd Bomb Group Operations Officer. “All about the field were the mountains, matted over with a pestilent jungle growth. The hills and mountains were inhabited by treacherous natives, and there was always a ruthless enemy to contend with. Moresby proper was a malaria-infested hole at the time. The crews had to bring their own bedding and mosquito bars. Since no adequate living quarters of any kind were available, the men slept—or tried to sleep—the night through beneath the wings of their planes. Since the Japanese would hit us without warning at night, two men always slept in their plane—ready to kick over the engines and rush to dispersal points. The food consisted of emergency rations. There was no radar, and there were no sirens, and our air raid warning consisted of an alarmed sentry firing three shots rapidly into the air. If you didn’t hear the shots, the next sound you usually heard were the bombs whistling down toward you.

  “During daylight, the air raid warning signal was a bit different. Someone frantically hoisted a red flag atop the rickety operations tower (it was made of logs and was a laugh) and if you saw the tower guys themselves come tumbling down and scooting off in all directions, why— you might even have two or three minutes to run and throw yourself into a deep ditch or any hole around. We were pretty fond of some of the old bomb craters.

  “There were no revetments for the dispersed; planes, and to save them, pilots often took off with cold motors and with bombs raining down as they went along the runways. And then there were the Zeros, which could always be counted upon to come right down to the runway and strafe everything and anything.”3

  There were aerial charts and maps that drifted in every now and then to the pilots, but they were a rarity rather than a normal part of operations. When the men finally did receive the charts they needed so badly, they soon threw them away in disgust because the information was so inaccurate.

  Weather forecasting was almost nonexistent, and more than once entire formations were turned back from their targets because of violent—and unpredicted—storms.

  Over the Owen Stanley Range particularly the weather was treacherous. Frequent storms, vicious downdrafts, and often impenetrable mists claimed planes and their entire crews.

  The crews remember one takeoff at three o’clock in the morning from Seven-Mile Drome. No one liked to try to get off Seven-Mile at night; it was bad enough racking a B-26 into the air from that field during the day. The strip was what the pilots called an “uphill-downhill thing and there were times when it could get pretty hairy.” Above all, the pilots wanted no part of the uphill takeoffs, because of the load to be carried and the condition of the runway. At one end of the runway there was a small hill, and if the temperature was high they needed a lot more speed and distance than usual to get safely into the air.

  But sometimes they did not have the speed, and maybe the wind was blowing from the wrong direction—or maybe it shifted just after a Marauder began its takeoff roll. Along the runway were dull, small ground flares—barely enough to keep a man going in the right direction. Every flare had someone standing by to douse it immediately if the Japanese came over suddenly.

  That particular takeoff made the other pilots wish they could forget they had ever seen it. The Marauder sailed into the darkness, her exhausts spitting dull flame. Just as she was over the grove of trees at the end of the runway, pulling hard for altitude and speed, something happened. No one knows what, of course. But the darkness vanished before a mushrooming ball of orange flame.

  Then a vicious blast ripped through the trees, giving the body of each man on the strip a squeeze as the pressure wave enveloped him. The sharp, roaring sound brought signs of relief to the faces of the waiting, watching men. The roar meant that the bombs in the Marauder had exploded and that any survivors in the wreckage had been mercifully released in that shattering instant. That was a blessing, the men said; burning alive was every kind of known hell.

  Walt Krell—one of the greatest bomber pilots who ever lived—had some memorable comments to make on Seven-Mile Drome. Krell’s notes taken during this phase of the war show starkly the nature of conditions at the time: “Seven-Mile used to get laced by the Japs two or three times every few days, and the bomb craters would get refilled with gravel, sand and earth, uncompacted. This would allow the heavily laden wheels of the B-26 to rut and sink. With about nine inches of propeller clearance from the ground even on a hard surface, you can well imagine the amount of pebbles with which we nicked the props as we wallowed around trying to get lined up in this soft dry mush, with landing struts compressed under a full load of bombs, ammo, fuel and crew. A number of times we had to take off downwind and we’d clip grass for a mile or more getting the wheels up and bleeding up the flaps before we really could figure we were flying.

  Nothing like a good thrill first thing—why wait to get to the target?

  ‘The B-17 and B-25 pilots didn’t quite have this problem of the tremendously high wing-load factor of the B-26 and they couldn’t seem to understand why we griped so much about the runway. After I explained that we were running short of pilots and having to borrow Aussies, and that arrangements undoubtedly could be made to have some of the B-17 and B-25 pilots transferred to the 22nd Group and B-26s, we heard no more queries about why the B-26s didn’t clear the runway as easily as the other types of aircraft.”

  The reputation of the Marauder as a pilot-killer—and the charge that she was unable to fly on one engine— deserve comment by the men of the 22nd Bomb Group. Jerry Crosson noted that “the plane met with mixed reactions at first. People who loved to fly a good airplane were wildly enthusiastic about it. It demanded a lot of its pilots, but it also gave them more in return than any other airplane flying. . . . It was like a big pursuit plane. . . * She was absolutely responsive to the controls. If you knew what you were doing, she never gave you any sudden or unexpected surprises. I’ve flown about every
hot ship the Air Force ever had and the B-26 is right at the top of the list as one of the finest I*ve ever flown....

  “The B-26 was incredibly strong, and packed into a long, beautiful shape. I’ve seen holes as big as beer barrels in the wings and it didn’t bother that bird a bit. It was a real military machine—a weapon.

  “Whoever said the ’26 couldn't fly with only one fan going is clear out of his mind. I flew one home all the way back from Lae with one engine shot up and dead. Hell, I’ve made dozens of flights with one of those props feathered—and I’m talking about the original *26 with the short wings. Arkie Greer and John Richardson dragged over the mountains one day with only one engine going. And they weren’t the only guys in our outfit to climb out with a full load, including bombs, with one engine dead...

  John Richardson: “Everything seemed to fall apart on us that day. We lost an engine right after takeoff. We were really loaded with fuel, bombs, and everything else We were marginal all the way, of course, but on only one engine we dragged ourselves over the hills until we got out over the water—beyond Seven-Mile at Moresby— and we could salvo our bombs safely. So even if things got real bad for you, that Marauder was enough of a brute to drag you on out of trouble.”

  “But of all the things we liked best about the B-26,” added Crosson, “the nicest was its speed. We would get up to three hundred miles per hour indicated, right on the deck, and that is true speed. It was just about as fast as most fighters flying at the time. Many times in combat we shoved over into long dives—a very steep gliding angle would be closer to it—and we would indicate three hundred and sixty miles per hour, and that was enough to give the Zeros a real hard time trying to stay with us.

  “Some of the guys, of course, when they were being shot to ribbons, would pound toward the ocean, trying to get to the water with everything in the cockpit shoved all the way forward, and in their dives they would indicate over four hundred miles per hour. The airplane is supposed to start coming apart at the seams when you do things like that, but ours never did, even when they were all shot up with holes all over them. The Zeros couldn’t turn to make their pursuit passes at us. The moment they turned when we were hellbent for leather we’d pull ahead of them.”

  John Richardson expanded on this point: “I was on one mission when it seemed that the Zeros picked us out as their particular target. They shot us to ribbons. They hit us at their leisure until we completed our bombing run. Not until then were we able to start running downhill, to run for home and build up our speed. I don’t know how we ever got back.

  “That B-26 was a flying wreck. It shook and buffeted from all the gaping holes and the jagged pieces of metal sticking out into the wind. We were really pouring the coal to the airplane and we were way over the maximum permissible speed, and we were still doing our very best to squeeze even more speed out of the machine. If we had been in any other airplane, we would never have made it.”

  John N. Ewbank, Jr. (today Brigadier General, Deputy Assistant Director of Operations, Tactical Air Command, USAF): . we would fly the pants off a B-25. We had that short-winged B-26 and except for a few fighters we could outrun anything in the air. We could carry a bomb load about as big as that for a B-17 and a lot faster* although not as high or as far, of course.

  “But in terms of the medium bombers, every one of us preferred the B-26 to anything else ever built. It was unbelievably rugged. We brought them home smashed and battered, we bellied them in when our gear systems were shot away, and three days later or sooner they were back in combat, slugging it out and taking everything dished out to us.

  “For my money, it was the finest weapon we had. It’s too bad we didn’t have more of them. And, as well, the spare parts and mechanics and the crews really to give us a chance to concentrate more on the enemy, rather than spending so much time scrounging parts and jury-rigging repairs so that we could get back into the air and fly our missions. . .

  “Who was the nut who told everybody back in the States that the Japanese were no match for us in the air? Those Japanese we met over New Guinea and up at Rabaul weren’t just good—they were hell on wheels. They were real good. We never had a doubt in the world that we were slugging it out with the cream of the crop. And Lae was about the worst of all. You were raked over the hot coals just about every single time you made that haul over the mountains. Remember those missions, John?”

  John Richardson waved a hand at General John Ew-bank. Ewbank leaned back in his seat; he did not have to try hard to remember the missions over New Guinea and New Britain. He had said more than once that you never forgot what it was like in the skies of the Southwest Pacific....

  “Yeal, Rabaul was really something. There was only one way to think of that target Rabaul would really shake you up whenever you went up there to try your luck. It was rugged, real rugged. Those Japanese were some damned fine flying people, let me tell you.

  “There was a run against Lae when I was convinced we would never make it back home. The mission called for us to make the flight to the target right on top of a cloud deck, and then to break through and go busting over Lae. Hit them with complete surprise.

  “I led that mission. Everything was going fine; we thought we really had it made. But all of a sudden we had company. Those pilots at Lae [this was the base to which Saburo Sakai was attached] were always hungry for bear, it seemed. Call them—well—‘exceptionally aggressive* is as good a term as any, I suppose. Far as I was concerned, they were out to tear us to pieces.

  “This was the first mission I was ever making when the Zeros ringed me in. I thought we had full surprise*, and the funny things is, we did. But the moment we were in sight we could see activity ahead of us. We were really moving, too. By the time we got to the end of the runway I was staring at those Zeros scrambling into the air like a swarm of gnats. They just hauled those planes right up at us, and they came running for us straight out of their takeoff runs. Pd never seen anything like it.

  “We went low over that field, bombs cascading down from us, and our gunners not knowing whether to shoot up the targets on the field or to try to track those Zeros that were clawing at us. Soon as we got the bombs out, I turned sharply and led the formation down low over the water. But the Zero pilots acted like they were pretty mad because they hadn’t been able to stop the attack. When we turned to head for home they cut inside real tight and fast and then they were all over us.

  “They stayed with us and gave us hell. That was also the first time I brought my airplane home a flying wreck, we were so full of gashes and holes* They really gave us a going-over. They came in to pointblank range as though our gunners weren’t even there, and then they hosed everything they had at us. And they had plenty.”

  On May 24, the men of the 22nd Bomb Group had even more cause to be grateful to the planes by which they swore; May 24 was also a day to remember as the grimmest kind of evidence of the quality of the fighter opposition. Six B-25 Mitchells of the 13th Squadron, 3rd Bomb Group, were led by Captain Herman F. Lowery against Lae. There was no fighter escort.

  Lowery took his bombers through a pass in the Owen Stanley Range, swept wide of the Salamaua air-base substation, and then swung in from the east to attack Lae, The six B-25s settled down for their bomb run.

  Eleven Zero fighters met them head-on. They included some of the best pilots at Lae, and they slaughtered the American planes.

  Lowery’s B-25 was jumped almost at once by a Zero piloted by Hiroyoshi Nishizawa. Under a short burst of cannon shells the B-25 exploded and smashed into the ocean as a ball of fire. Toshio Ota shot down the second Mitchell. Moments later, Saburo Sakai tore the third American bomber into disintegrating wreckage. Junichi Sasai’s guns blew up the fourth B-25. Saburo Sakai came into pointblank range of the fifth plane to rip into burning wreckage his second kill of the fight.

  The pilots then crowded against the last B-25, cutting it to ribbons before they finally broke off their attack and went back to Lae. Somehow, with their a
irplane almost falling apart about them, the crew managed to get back to Moresby, where the pilot crashed his airplane on the strip.

  Five out of six . . . and the sixth almost a complete wreck.

  There came about a strange postscript to the disastrous mission of May 24, told by Walter A. Krell, at the time a lieutenant with the 22nd. War Correspondent Pat Robinson said of him: “If ever a man subordinated himself to his crew, it was Krell. To him, leadership was more than a responsibility; it was a consecration to those who served with him.”6

  Walt Krell made a meticulous examination of the combat records of the Lae fighter wing, especially the reports by Saburo Sakai. And then (in a meeting with the writer) he recalled the past—“much too vividly,” as he said.

  He had compared his own flight log with those of the Japanese pilot. “As I go back through all this,” he said, “a thousand and one incidents flash through my mind. As I thumb through Sakai’s records covering this period of the war, almost every page comes to life with episodes with which we were so terribly familiar. For example, Sakai details the great day they had when they knocked down five out of six B-25s.

  “I was worried that the Japs had come up with some sort of a new gimmick that gave them some kind of tremendous odds. I was particularly concerned because I was scheduled to take the next group flight over Lae, where this had happened. After some effort, I got next to some 3rd Group pilots, but they couldn’t seem to do a thing but lament what they thought was in store for them on their next trip over the target