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

by Bruce Gamble

  Before the mission, the fliers had been briefed that coastwatchers were in place on New Britain and New Ireland. Accompanied by at least two other Kittyhawks, Freeman steered for the western coast of New Ireland, where a luluai named Boski was available to assist downed airmen. Steadily losing altitude, Freeman was last seen circling a riverbed about two miles inland, but before he could find a suitable place to belly in, more Zeros piled on. They drove away the pair of Kittyhawks attempting to protect Freeman, who was never seen again.

  Over Rabaul, meanwhile, two fighters collided head-on. One was a Zero of Air Group 253, flown by a reckless teenager, Flyer 1st Class Masajiro Kawato. Eighteen years old when he completed the enlisted flight training course, Kawato had already made two deliberate ramming attacks back in November, and successfully bailed out both times. On this particular morning, he accidentally collided with the Kittyhawk flown by Flight Lt. John O. MacFarlane. Both pilots hit the silk. A small vessel rescued Kawato, while MacFarlane was taken prisoner.

  Only one other Zero was lost during the interception, according to Japanese records. Whether it was the aircraft credited to Freeman is impossible to know, but the dearth of enemy planes was collaborated by Boyington—or at least by the legend of Boyington.

  While the melee between Zeros and Kittyhawks swirled at low altitudes, Boyington led the American fighters across Cape Saint George toward Simpson Harbor. From four miles high, the pilots could see a few dozen fighters on the ground at Lakunai. None took off. A few large antiaircraft shells burst over the harbor, as though the Japanese gunners were satisfied with taking potshots. Frustrated by the lack of response, Boyington thumbed his throat microphone and shouted on the command channel: “Come on up and fight!”

  At Eleventh Air Fleet headquarters, several English-speaking Nisei (individuals born in the United States to Japanese immigrants) were monitoring the American frequency. One was Edward Honda, born and raised in Hawaii. After his high school graduation, Edward’s parents sent him to Japan for a religious education under his given name. Chikaki Honda played baseball at Keio University, became a sportswriter for the Domei News Agency, and eventually landed an assistant coaching position with the Nagoya Dragons. When the Japanese launched the Southern Offensive in 1941, Honda forfeited his American citizenship and joined the Imperial Navy as an interpreter. By the time he arrived at Rabaul in the summer of 1943, twelve years had passed since he had left Hawaii.

  But Honda hadn’t forgotten English. After Boyington transmitted two more radio challenges, he keyed his own microphone and replied, “Come on down, sucker.”

  Provoked, Boyington pushed his Corsair down to ten thousand feet and sprayed about nine hundred rounds toward Lakunai airdrome. Still no Zeros came up to challenge him. He continued to orbit in an empty sky, unaware that two of his pilots had gone after targets of opportunity, claiming three enemy fighters between them.

  After stopping at Torokina for gas, Boyington hopped down to Vella Lavella, landing at midafternoon in a black mood.

  Flinging his cloth helmet down as he walked into the operations tent, he growled, “They wouldn’t come up. Just a few strays.… We scared them. We ought to send up only about 24 planes, so they’d be sure to come up and fight.”

  As returning pilots gave reports, it became apparent that the inaugural fighter sweep had been disappointing. The intelligence report submitted by Walton recommended a more manageable number of aircraft for future efforts. “Far too many fighter planes were sent on the sweep,” he wrote on Boyington’s behalf, adding a recommendation to avoid combining aircraft of different types or mismatched performance. It was challenging enough to lead a large formation of navy Hellcats and marine Corsairs, which shared the same powerplant. But the army-type Kittyhawks had little in common with the naval fighters, and Boyington had almost no control over the New Zealanders.

  More importantly, the P-40 looked dangerously similar to the Ki-61 Tony. One of the Black Sheep pilots, Lt. Robert M. Bragdon, reported an uncomfortable experience during that first sweep over Rabaul.

  Starting off last from Torokina as a spare, Bragdon decided (irrationally) to make a solo strafing run over the township. He then climbed back up to five thousand feet, saw little action in his immediate area, and headed southeasterly over Saint George’s Channel. Suddenly a stream of tracers snapped past his wings. Bragdon twisted in his seat and was stunned to see a half dozen Tonys behind him. Shoving the throttle to the stops, he ran. The so-called Tonys, described as having white tail assemblies, with white diagonal stripes on the wings and indistinct national insignia, gave chase. Not because they wanted to shoot him down, but because they were New Zealand P-40s headed in the same direction. That one of them fired on Bragdon by mistake illustrates the ease with which any single-engine fighter—even one with an unusual wing design—could be mistaken for an enemy. And when an Allied plane such as the P-40 closely resembled an enemy fighter, the probability of mistaken identity grew exponentially.

  THE NEXT ATTEMPT to hit Rabaul, scheduled for December 18, was canceled because of bad weather. Another effort the following day saw limited success as a few heavy bombers got through to make the first attack on Rabaul by the Thirteenth Air Force. Forty-eight B-24s from the 5th and the 307th Bomb Groups from Guadalcanal were assigned to the 1,300-mile round trip; however, only sixteen reached the target escorted by fifty fighters—an eclectic mix of P-38s, F4Us, and P-40s.

  The outcome for the Allies could have been disastrous. The previous day, eighteen Hamps had arrived at Rabaul for temporary duty with Air Group 253. Bolstered by the new arrivals, the Japanese sent up ninety-four fighters. Fortunately for the Allies, less than half the interceptors made contact. A few did get past the escorts and fired on the bombers, but caused only superficial damage to one B-24.

  Because of cloud cover, most fights resulted in brief, deadly engagements between interceptors and escorts. Of the twelve participating Corsairs from VMF-222, the two-plane section of 1st Lt. Carl T. McLean and 2nd Lt. Charles D. Jones did all the shooting. While flying close escort for the B-24s, the two marines dropped down to flame a Zeke apiece, catching both in their climbs. Jones then saw a Zeke being chased by a Corsair, which in turn had another Zeke dead astern on its tail. As he moved to help, four more Japanese fighters sailed in behind the unfortunate Corsair. Jones lined up a deflection shot on the last enemy fighter and blew its tail assembly off, but was unable to further assist “the poor bastard” in the F4U. He therefore caught the last known sighting of one of the two marines who turned up missing from another squadron, VMF-216.

  Organized a year earlier and commissioned in September 1943, VMF-216 had but two combat-experienced pilots: Maj. Rivers J. Morrell, the commanding officer, and Capt. Lawrence M. Faulkner, the operations officer. The other pilots were young lieutenants fresh out of flight training. Morrell and Faulkner flew with their respective divisions on the fighter sweep led by Boyington on December 17, and by chance drew escort duties on December 19 as well. During the outbound leg from Torokina, one Corsair turned back with mechanical trouble, leaving Faulkner with just two wingmen, lieutenants Guy H. Kemper and Robert M. Marshall. As the bombers egressed from the target, Faulkner led his division away from the formation in a shallow dive, apparently with the intention of attacking enemy planes, but instead his trio was jumped from up-sun by twenty to thirty waiting aircraft. Faulkner and Kemper did not return from the mission. The only survivor of the trio was Marshall, who flew back to Torokina in a badly shot-up (and famously photographed) F4U.

  Two pilots were seen adrift in rubber rafts that afternoon, but the Dumbos could not launch a rescue attempt until the following morning. Despite extensive searches that day, neither pilot was found. The December 19 mission had been costly, with ten fighters and five pilots lost, but the two marines were the only Allied pilots shot down near Rabaul. The remaining fatalities were the result of ditching or landing mishaps and a midair collision, all of which occurred at or near the home airfields. Allied pilot
s (and one B-24 crew) sought credit for shooting down five enemy fighters, and the Japanese admitted to the loss of exactly five Reisens, with three pilots killed. For a change, there had been no embellishment.

  BOYINGTON WAS NOT scheduled to fly for a few days. Uninterested in the paperwork that came with commanding a squadron, he left the administrative chores to his new executive officer, Maj. Pierre M. Carnagey. On December 21, Boyington was tapped to lead twelve Corsairs as part the escort for a heavy bomber strike on Rabaul, but the mission was scrubbed due to weather. The advent of the rainy season meant more impenetrable fronts sprouting above the warm seas.

  The cancellation upset Boyington. Half of what would undoubtedly be his final combat tour had already slipped by—yet he had not so much as laid the pipper of his gun sight on an adversary since mid-October. Because all the squadrons in SOPAC got an equal crack at mission assignments, he would have only a few more opportunities to shoot down enemy planes. The pressure to tie or beat the Foss-Rickenbacker victory record was mounting by the day.

  Other pilots were in the ace race, too. During the rough-and-tumble days of the Guadalcanal campaign, Marion Carl had accumulated 16.5 victories—and would have been a half-victory ahead of Boyington at this stage if the Marine Corps had properly acknowledged only two aerial victories for Boyington as a Flying Tiger. Raised on a dairy farm south of Portland, Oregon, Carl was every bit as tough and aggressive as Boyington in the cockpit, but the complete opposite in personality, character, and physique. On December 23, Carl was detailed to lead a forty-eight plane fighter sweep over Rabaul, scheduled to arrive approximately an hour after a strike by Thirteenth Air Force B-24s.

  As usual the fighters gathered at Torokina to top off their tanks. The bomber escorts, which included two divisions of VMF-214 led by Carnagey, took off first and rendezvoused with the B-24s flying up from Guadalcanal. The enemy’s early warning network, which included a radar site at the tip of Cape Saint George, sixty-five miles southeast of Rabaul, gave the Japanese ample time to scramble interceptors. The three air groups of the Eleventh Air Fleet launched almost one hundred fighters: thirty by Air Group 201, thirty-eight by Air Group 204, and another thirty-one by Air Group 253. Approximately sixty made contact with the Allies.

  After swinging wide to the left in order to attack from the northwest, two separate formations of Liberators unloaded their bombs on Lakunai airdrome with great accuracy. More than twenty personnel were killed and a Gekko night fighter damaged in the 25th Air Flotilla area, while the 26th Air Flotilla section was likewise badly damaged.

  In the meantime, thirty aerial phosphorus bombs burst in front of the B-24s, causing no appreciable damage. Several interceptors fought past the escorts and opened fire on the formation. The damage was superficial, but a bombardier was killed by gunfire and a copilot wounded. Greater harm was caused by a gaggle of Zeros that overwhelmed the escorting fighters, shorthanded on one side of the formation because two Corsairs had turned back. Ensign James A. Warren of VF-33 may have joined briefly with Carnagey and his wingman, Lt. James E. Brubaker, all three of whom failed to return from the mission. Carnagey and Brubaker were probably killed in action or lost at sea. Warren either ditched or bailed out and was captured by the Kempeitai, becoming the latest in a growing population of POWs at Rabaul.

  The outcome of the fighter sweep was better. Entering the target area fifteen minutes after the bombers departed, Carl’s forty-eight fighters came upon numerous Zeros that had chased the Liberators and were headed back to Rabaul. Some Zeros had no radio—pilots stripped them, scorning the extra weight they incurred—and could not be warned of the American fighters approaching from behind near the southern tip of New Ireland. At the bottom of the formation, the two divisions of Black Sheep were ideally placed. Seeing a cluster of enemy planes off to his right, Boyington called “This is it, fellows,” and the pilots separated to hunt their own targets.

  Individual fights broke out all over the area. “We made contact over Cape St. George,” Carl later wrote, “and I stalked a new opponent through the clouds. It was a Kawasaki Tony, a sleek, good-looking Japanese Army fighter that resembled a Messerschmitt 109. I splashed him between Rabaul and New Ireland while the rest of the squadron claimed three more confirmed and three probables without loss. Boyington’s squadron and VMF-222 added fifteen more; we were taking a toll on Rabaul’s defenders.”

  Carl did not mention that two P-38 pilots of the 44th Fighter Squadron/18th Fighter Group claimed individual victories, as did three Hellcat drivers of VF-33 who were escorting B-24s. Nor did he mention that the Black Sheep and specifically Boyington had claimed the biggest haul. Of the fifteen victories he acknowledged on behalf of VMF-214 and -222, twelve were credited to the Black Sheep. Boyington personally claimed four, jumping suddenly to within two victories of the existing record.

  The pilots of six Reisens were killed in action on December 23, including two commissioned officers with extensive experience. Lieutenant Junior Grade Yoshio Oba, a naval academy graduate, led the combined fighters of two air groups from Lakunai that morning and was the last active division officer in Air Group 201 at the time of his death. It was a bad day for the Japanese fighter units at Rabaul—but better than the total of thirty victories officially awarded to American fighter pilots and B-24 gunners.

  The one person who stood to gain the most, Boyington, was the only American pilot out of the dozens involved who claimed more than two kills. His descriptions of the individual combats, which he presented to Walton during the post-mission debriefing, were the sole basis for his receipt of official credit. Boyington’s wingman that morning, Lt. Robert W. McClurg, was prone to going after his own targets. He had, in fact, chased down and claimed Zeros for himself on that mission. Boyington flew alone.

  Although several factors make Boyington’s four claims difficult to reconcile, the most harmful is his veracity. During interviews and public presentations and in his own writing, Boyington unflinchingly described himself as untruthful. In one interview, he even called himself a pathological liar. (He actually said “psychopathic,” but his meaning was clear.) Because of his damning self-assessment, it is extremely difficult to accept his claim that he downed four enemy fighters. The pilots adored his cavalier demeanor and aggressive combat leadership—no one can challenge those attributes—but Boyington was his own worst enemy regarding the credibility of his after-action reports. In addition to his well-established track record of embellishments, he had a personal agenda: beating the victory record. Finally, if Boyington’s four victories were to be taken at face value, then almost all the claims by twenty-three other pilots and aircrew members were mathematically impossible, as only two other Japanese fighters were lost.

  A total of six Zeros were definitely lost, and an unknown number of others returned with combat damage, which confirms that a considerable portion of the shooting that day was accurate. Circumstantially, some of the overclaiming was innocent—the result of perspective. Pilots and gunners, peering through an illuminated gun sight or simple ring sight, were practically oblivious to what was happening outside their narrow cone of concentration. The likelihood that other pilots or gunners were shooting at the same plane, in succession if not simultaneously, was extremely high. In a battle involving dozens of aircraft, all moving fluidly in three dimensions at hundreds of miles per hour, there was often more visual input than the brain could process. Stir in the occasional gray-out and blackout of high-g maneuvering, together with the body’s natural responses to mortal danger—the autonomic release of chemicals and neurotransmitters such as adrenalin and dopamine—and the fighter pilots were not only mentally agitated but physically juiced during combat.

  It was the responsibility of nonflying intelligence officers to determine the official results of the pilots’ claims. Given tremendous latitude regarding their decisions, the ACIOs were under pressure to award credits generously. Squadrons and individuals competed vigorously for top-gun bragging rights; and there were plenty o
f correspondents waiting to write hyperbolic articles to boost morale back home. In most cases, if a pilot or gunner provided a plausible account, his claim was accepted.

  Years later, Walton acknowledged the phenomenon of overclaiming:

  The records were way, way inflated; all of our claims were inflated. We shot down about four times as many planes as the Japanese ever produced, according to the records. We never had any verification on a lot of the claims. We trusted, in many cases, just the guy’s word: “Yes, I did this and I did that.” The way he detailed it was what we put down.

  Bruce J. Matheson, the only member of Boyington’s group to reach flag rank, agreed that duplicity was inherent in the claims process:

  Frank would tend to sort this out. He’d say, “Now, wait a minute, you said this,” and somebody else would say, “Yeah, but I was over here and I’m sure I shot it.” Frank would say, “Is there a possibility you two guys were shooting at the same airplane?”

  Hell, yes; there may have been three or four of us shooting at this poor sucker before he finally blew up!

  The awards system in place during World War II was flawed, but there was no alternative. The fighters in the Solomons were not equipped with gun cameras, so the intelligence officers had to rely on the honor system.

  Scrutiny aside, Boyington was a happy man when he returned to Vella Lavella on the afternoon of December 23. Interviewed in a radio truck for a future broadcast on American radio stations, he also gave several newspaper correspondents inspirational material. With the victory record on everyone’s lips, the Black Sheep started an epic party in the tent Boyington shared with Walton and the flight surgeon, navy lieutenant James M. Reames, who kept a supply of medicinal liquor. Thanks to Reames’s Le Jon brandy, Boyington was talkative, philosophizing on a variety of subjects. Although another of his pilots had been lost during the fighter sweep, making it the squadron’s worst day yet, the Black Sheep skipper was pleased with his own outlook. “I’m working with the best bunch of guys in the South Pacific,” correspondent Dan Bailey heard him exclaim. “I’m flying. I’m fighting. I’m killing Japs. I’m the happiest man in the world.”