Target: Rabaul: The Allied Siege of Japan's Most Infamous Stronghold, March 1943 - August 1945

by Bruce Gamble

The only other opposition for the B-17s was a series of attacks by a so-called “night fighter,” probably a Ki-45 of the 13th Flying Regiment. First Lieutenant John C. Glyer’s crew, in a B-17 of the 63rd Bomb Squadron, was caught in searchlights at the beginning of the bomb run and attacked from behind by a twin-engine fighter. The attack caused no damage. A second Fortress, piloted by Capt. Robert H. Fuller of the 65th Bomb Squadron, escaped “a fantastic duel with a Nip night fighter from Madang to Wewak and back again.” The fighter reportedly made twelve passes at Fuller’s aircraft without scoring a single hit.

  The B-24s of the 90th Bomb Group, assigned to attack Boram and Wewak airdromes, initially encountered little opposition. One of the first on the scene, a Liberator of the 320th Bomb Squadron named Moby Dick, was piloted by Lt. Lionel B. Potter. Approaching Wewak, he found it “just too quiet and peaceful—not a light or sign of life anywhere.” But soon four searchlights flicked on. Enemy gunners quickly found the range and shook the Liberator with near misses; then there were nine searchlights, after which the shell bursts became “awfully damn accurate.” The blinding searchlights prevented the bombardier from aiming through the Norden bombsight, so Potter verbally called for the release of their frag clusters after seeing “a beautiful string” of tracers from an automatic cannon arc in front of the bomber’s nose.

  The trailing Liberators ran into heavy antiaircraft fire as well, and possibly one or more Ki-48s. Shortly after the leader of the 400th Bomb Squadron lit up Boram with more than 1,500 incendiaries, Yanks From Hell II, piloted by 2nd Lt. Joseph M. Casale of the 321st squadron, burst into flames. The sight of the heavy bomber, blazing like a comet as it arced toward the black jungle, stunned the nearby crews. The stricken bomber may have collided with Twin Nifties II, flown by 1st Lt. Charles R. Freas of the 400th Squadron, which flew southward for about twenty minutes before smashing into a swamp. But an alternate situation is also worth noting. The 13th Flying Regiment, operating a squadron of twin-engine fighters out of Boram, claimed one bomber destroyed and another probably destroyed on August 17.

  Leaving destruction in their wake, the bomber crews set course for Port Moresby. During the return flight, a third B-24 (of the 403rd Squadron/43rd Bomb Group) went down along the coast of New Guinea after the crew became lost and ran out of gas. The offshore crash-landing killed four crewmembers. The other heavies returned safely, and despite twenty-five empty cots among the bomb groups (Yanks From Hell II had gone down with eleven men aboard), most of the participants considered the mission successful. “Not too bad,” Lieutenant Potter observed afterward, “three planes out of forty-eight.”

  Whitehead’s first aerial jab had connected, setting up the Fifth Air Force for an even harder punch. The goal had been to cause enough damage that the Japanese would still be assessing the situation come daybreak, and that goal succeeded. According to Japanese documentation, thirteen aircraft had been destroyed on the ground, twenty badly damaged, and another thirty-four slightly damaged.

  Some of the heavies were still winging back to Port Moresby when five squadrons of strafer-modified B-25s commenced the next segment of Whitehead’s plan. Beginning at 0600, twenty-four aircraft of the 71st and 405th Bomb Squadrons, 38th Bomb Group, took off from Durand Field near Port Moresby. At the same time, the Dobodura-based 8th, 13th, and 90th Bomb Squadrons, 3rd Bomb Group, sent aloft thirty-seven strafers, which had hopped over the mountains to Port Moresby the day before. Heading north toward designated rendezvous points, the B-25s were to pick up escorts of P-38s from six squadrons of the 35th, 49th, and 475th Fighter Groups. (Kenney’s concerns about the lack of fighters had been greatly alleviated: of the 127 Lightnings in commission on August 16, V Fighter Command committed 99 of them as escorts for the B-25s.)

  Low clouds moved in, and the well-laid plans began to unravel. Captain Ezra “Easy” Best, the acting commander of the 71st Bomb Squadron, led twelve B-25s toward their assigned rendezvous point over Bena Bena. No fighters were in the area when the strafers arrived at 0750. After orbiting for nearly an hour, during which only two P-38s were briefly sighted—probably from the 8th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron—Best decided to take his squadron back to Port Moresby.

  The twelve B-25s from 405th Bomb Squadron, led by Capt. William Ruark, fared little better. The previous day, mechanics had completed installing the three-hundred-gallon auxiliary tank that would give each strafer the necessary range for the long mission. The square tank was rigged to drop through the opening where the ventral turret had been. In order to empty the tank, the pilots first used approximately three hundred gallons from the two wing tanks, and then turned on an electric pump that transferred the fuel from the auxiliary tank into the wings. Most of the crews accomplished this after the squadron picked up their escort of P-38s over Marilinan. So far, so good; however, the strike plan also called for Ruark’s aircraft to rendezvous with the B-25s from the 3rd Bomb Group and their P-38s, none of which showed up.

  Proceeding independently across the mountains, Ruark led his squadron and their escorts into the Markham Valley. They stayed near the slopes at an altitude of a thousand feet or less, keeping well away from Madang. On Ruark’s right wing, Capt. Garrett E. Middlebrook emptied his auxiliary tank and instructed the upper turret gunner, Staff Sgt. Robert S. Emminger, to release it. The tank wouldn’t budge. Anxious to get rid of the potential bomb, Middlebrook told the sergeant to hook his parachute harness to the exposed ribs of the fuselage above the tank, and then “jump up and down on the son-of-a-bitch.” It worked. With the tank gone, Emminger calmly installed a metal plate over the open hole and then tested the guns in the upper turret.

  Shortly after crossing the Sepik River, about forty-five miles from the target, Ruark and most of the other B-25s suddenly reversed their course. The maneuver astonished Middlebrook. Because the crews were under strict radio silence, it took him a moment to realize what was happening. The other crews, he reasoned correctly, had experienced the same difficulty with their aux tank—but they didn’t have someone like Emminger to kick the empty container out. More bad news followed as his crew called over the interphone that the P-38s were also heading in the opposite direction to shepherd Ruark.

  Ahead, Middlebrook saw a lone strafer “flying straight as an arrow” toward Wewak. He added power and dived slightly to catch up. Just as he joined on the right wing of the B-25, piloted by Capt. William N. Gay, Lt. Berdines Lackness slid up on the opposite side in another strafer. For the next few minutes, Middlebrook pondered what they were all thinking. As far as any of them knew, they were all that remained of the attack force: three medium bombers, not only heading toward Japan’s biggest base in New Guinea, but flying without fighter protection.

  After wondering to himself “where duty ended and insanity began,” Middlebrook chose to accept what the others had already decided. They were going to attack.

  SOON AFTER SUNRISE at Wewak, troops began to move among the buildings, supply dumps, and parked aircraft to assess the damage caused by the predawn raid. All that remained of some aircraft were charred, twisted remains; others sat unscathed, their canopies glinting in the sunlight. Casualties had been high: approximately seventy men killed. At the main airdrome, an aviation intelligence officer smoked incessantly while sorting out the night’s implications. Captain Akira Yamanaka hoped to predict the Allies’ next move. In the meantime, a major strike was about to be launched, and two planeloads of senior staff from Rabaul were on the premises. They had arrived the previous day full of enthusiasm for the victorious air battles over Tsili-Tsili, but now they were troubled. Both of the Type 97 heavy bombers that had delivered them from Rabaul were smoldering wrecks.

  Yamanaka also pondered a recent sighting by a distant observation post, which reported a pair of high-flying P-38s headed toward Wewak. (Indeed, two F-4/F-5 Lightnings, flown by Loos and Lt. Thomas Farmer, photographed all four airdromes that morning.) Whatever conclusions Yamanaka reached, he could not share them with his superiors at headquarters because the ph
one lines were down. While he fretted, the staff officers from Rabaul stopped by. One, a classmate from the military academy, commented that the damage on the field represented a restraining attack. The visitors then departed for the area headquarters building, a former church on a hill overlooking Wewak.

  Yamanaka suddenly understood what was about to occur: the night attack had been a preliminary event. He ordered troops to repair the broken comm lines as quickly as possible, but circumstances were stacked against him. Because of the attack plan and the visiting staff officers, the airdromes were crowded with planes lined up for inspection. The radar equipment brought to Wewak four months earlier was still not operational, but an outpost at Hansa Bay gave a disturbing report by radio: an enemy formation was approaching Wewak from the southeast. Calculating that the attackers would arrive in twenty minutes, Yamanaka realized that a full-blown disaster loomed. Minutes later, informed that some of the phone lines had been repaired, he relayed a warning to But airdrome, thirty miles up the coast.

  THE B-25s LED by Captain Gay were not alone after all. Major Donald P. Hall, commanding officer of the 3rd Bomb Group, led elements of three squadrons down to treetop level as they approached Boram and Wewak. Several B-25s had aborted for various reasons, but Hall, flying with the 8th Bomb Squadron, still had twenty-one strafers when he approached the stronghold. His six, along with the eight remaining B-25s of the 13th Bomb Squadron, headed for Boram airdrome; the strafers of the 90th Bomb Squadron would have Wewak airdrome all to themselves.

  The sight that greeted Hall and his fellow crews at Boram seemed too good to be true. About seventy aircraft, mostly fighters, some with engines turning and many surrounded by ground crews, were parked in straight rows along the sides of the runway. The Japanese, convinced that Wewak was safe from low-level attack, were taken completely by surprise. No Oscars or Tonys interfered (to the frustration of the P-38 escorts), and even the Japanese gun crews were slow to respond.

  Boring in at full throttle, Hall’s strafers attacked the Boram strip in two groups of three, some dipping as low as twenty feet above the runway. Several hundred yards from the parked enemy planes, the pilots opened fire. Each of the B-25s shuddered from the recoil as its eight tightly grouped Browning M2 machine guns, firing at a collective rate of more than a hundred rounds per second, lashed out with yellow streaks of fire. With three aircraft firing simultaneously down the length of the runway, the combined firepower of twenty-four machine guns filled the air with thousands of slugs, each an inch and a half long with a weight of about 1.6 ounces. Many slugs slammed harmlessly into the earthen strip or jungle vegetation, but hundreds of others struck home with lethal force. A hail of projectiles smothered vehicles, aircraft, and people. Puffs of dust, metal fragments, and human gore arose, accompanied by the sounds of hell on earth: the whoosh of exploding fuel tanks, the cacophony of machine guns, the impact of heavy bullets, and shrieks of agony.

  The damage continued even after Hall’s section of B-25s flashed beyond the runway. While the pilots held the trigger down, the copilots had released dozens of clusters of twenty-three-pound parafrags. They exploded in strings, each bomb having a lethal radius of approximately 120 feet. A few seconds later, the second section strafers duplicated the pass. Then, after a brief delay, it was the 13th Squadron’s turn to roar in over the treetops and repeat the mayhem. The third wave alone dropped ninety-five clusters of parafrags and fired approximately 12,500 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition. Enemy gunners had gotten into action by that time, but their shooting was inaccurate, scoring only minor hits on a couple of B-25s.

  About three miles away, Capt. Philip H. Hawkins, described by a newspaper correspondent as “a typical Texan from the Panhandle with a drawl as soft as the wool tops on his flying boots,” led his strafers of the 90th Bomb Group over Wewak airdrome. The seven B-25s fired six thousand rounds of ammunition and released 177 clusters of parafrags.

  Moments before all the chaos began, Yamanaka and the men of his intelligence unit had started running down the airstrip, shouting and waving to warn pilots and ground crews of the impending attack. Yamanaka then flung himself to the ground and watched with horror as planes erupted and bodies flew through the air. When he started to rise, the second wave of attackers forced him to take cover. Finally, after the third wave of heavy gunfire and bomb bursts, the airfield was incongruously still. Yamanaka and the other survivors rose to their feet and looked around, trying to comprehend the destruction. The only sounds were the crackle of burning planes and the cries of the wounded.

  Twenty-three miles northwest, the scene was similar at Dagua airdrome. Approaching from the east, the three B-25s led by Captain Gay hugged the terrain several miles inland. Captain John H. H. Massie, a popular RAAF intelligence officer, had provided topographical reference points that enabled them to locate the airdrome from minimal altitude. Following his references, the pilots spotted the runway and set up their gunnery runs. When the full length of the airstrip became visible, the crews couldn’t believe their good fortune. “God, it was unbelievable,” Middlebrook would later write. He counted “at least forty to fifty” twin engine bombers lined up along the southern length of the strip, and several Oscars on the opposite side. He also noticed three Oscars taking off over the tree line at the far end of the strip. Yamanaka’s last-minute warning had apparently been relayed to Dagua, and the three interceptors managed to scramble before the attackers arrived.

  The three strafers, meanwhile, howled down the runway at 280 miles per hour, their guns spitting fire while parafrags tumbled from the bomb bays. Middlebrook had pointed his gunship’s nose at a neat row of bombers on the ground.

  The first twin-engine Sally bomber which my tracers poured into exploded, and the concussion caused an identical plane alongside it to jump several feet into the air before settling back to earth, where it too began to burn. I saw the tail section upon a third bomber disintegrate while the wing of yet another was shredded. Two Japanese soldiers were running toward the jungle along the south edge of the runway. They ran alongside another bomber just as my firepower reached it. The violent explosion formed a fireball which engulfed the two Japs, causing them to instantaneously disappear from the face of the earth.

  Unlike Boram and Wewak, Dagua’s antiaircraft emplacements were manned and ready. The gunners put up intense fire described by the three crews as “fairly accurate,” although none of the B-25s suffered damage during the attack. However, there was another downside to attacking the far corner of the Wewak complex: the strafers were now almost thirty miles deeper into enemy territory than the other B-25s, with no fighter escort. Furthermore, because the airdrome at But had not been attacked by the 71st Bomb Squadron, the enemy fighters there were unimpeded.

  Just as Gay, Middlebook, and Lackness completed their attack run, ten to fifteen Ki-43s intercepted the trio at minimum altitude. Middlebrook would later describe it as an appropriate moment “to flee for our lives and to place our faith in those Wright Cyclone engines.” Curving to the right, the B-25s made a high-speed turn to head for home base. Out over the water, they dropped to the wave tops and joined up. An Oscar that had taken off ahead of them zoomed up in a chandelle, intending to reverse direction and drop down on a gunnery run. Slowing dramatically at the top, the pilot briefly presented the full upper profile of his fighter to the American turret gunners. Shooting furiously, all three connected. The pulverized Oscar spun in, leaving a slick of greasy flames on the water.

  Thereafter, flying in tight formation to maximize their defensive fire, the trio of B-25s endured repeated attacks by more than a dozen Oscars. During the running fight, which lasted a full hour, Gay masterfully hugged the water at just twenty feet. He kept the formation over the sea until they reached the homeward side of Wewak, then headed inland and led the enemy fighters on a rolling, undulating chase above the treetops. Mile after mile, the pursuit continued. The Japanese pilots tried to induce a mistake, but Gay matched their wits and skill at every turn. With each
mile that passed beneath their wings, the B-25s got closer to home, the Oscars farther from theirs. Gradually, by ones and twos, the fighters gave up. Six were still in the hunt, however, when two of the B-25s ran out of ammunition, leaving only Middlebrook’s gunners still shooting. The last two fighters did not break off until the formation had reached Salamaua—a distance of approximately three hundred miles from Wewak. Soaked with sweat, drained physically and emotionally, the three American crews quietly cheered their hairbreadth escape.*

  At Port Moresby, the 3rd Bomb Group returned from Wewak to a raucous welcome. Word about the outcome of the attack preceded them, and as they swaggered from their planes, correspondents met them with notebooks at the ready. Alan Dawes, from the Sydney Telegraph, interviewed several crewmembers to obtain quotes for his article. Staff Sergeant Victor A. Hoffacker, a turret gunner in the 13th Bomb Squadron, “was nearly dancing with delight, fresh from the best spectacle he had seen since the Bismarck Sea.” The comparison surfaced again when Dawes spoke with Hawkins, leader of the 90th Bomb Squadron B-25s: “It was a cinch,” the Texan told him. “Except for the Bismarck Sea battle, which was a job of a different order, this was the most successful mission I have ever been on.”

  Thanks to the inevitable comparisons, the raid on Wewak was hailed as a devastating blow to the enemy. At ADVON headquarters, Whitehead told reporters he was “delighted with the success of the mission and with the performance of the air personnel.”

  But a definitive summary of damage at Wewak was not forthcoming. Farmer and Loos, the two pilots who had photographed the airdromes after the predawn strike, attempted another run after the B-25s attacked. Unfortunately, they photographed only one airdrome before their film ran out. The keeper of the 8th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron war diary later noted: “Although no accurate estimate of the damage can be assessed, it is assumed that 70 to 80 planes were destroyed on the ground.”