by Bruce Gamble
Aboard Vince Snyder’s Queenie, a 20mm shell took out the oxygen system. The air at twenty-two thousand feet was thin, and hypoxia began to affect the crew within minutes. Feeling woozy, Snyder struggled to maintain his position on the wing of Suzy-Q.
Down below, dozens of antiaircraft batteries opened up, joined by dozens of guns aboard the ships in the anchorages. Fortunately for the bombers, the shells burst above and behind the formation, which continued without wavering. When the lead bombardier “pickled” his bombs, the others dropped too, sending a total of ninety-six bombs of various sizes whistling toward Vunakanau airdrome. Crews later reported that their aim was true: the bombs exploded on the runway and nearby dispersal areas.
The Zeros attacked even more vigorously as the formation turned away from the target and headed southward. Aboard Carmichael’s bomber, a side gunner was killed and another gunner wounded. The oxygen system was also shot out, and Carmichael keyed the command channel of his radio to inform Hardison that he was dropping to a lower altitude. When the lead B-17 started down, Hardison followed in Suzy-Q. Behind them, trying to maintain position on Hardison, the groggy Vince Snyder reacted to the abrupt change by putting Queenie in a “crash dive.” He almost collided with Suzy-Q, and the sudden maneuvering caused a domino effect among the trailing B-17s. Pilots took evasive action to avoid ramming into each other, which broke up the formation. With the defensive integrity of the formation gone, the Fortresses at the rear were the most vulnerable. Captain Jacquet’s B-17E, Tojos Jinx, suffered two casualties with one gunner killed and another wounded, and other B-17s absorbed varying degrees of damage.
But it was Pease, at the tail end, who caught the full force of the Zeros’ aggression. The combat doctrine of the Japanese was to always fight offensively. Whatever type of aircraft they faced, their preferred tactic was to single out one plane and overwhelm it. Thus, when Why Don’t We Do This More Often lost an engine and fell behind, the Zeros pounced like wolves on a wounded caribou.
In Tojo’s Jinx, Ed Jacquet “hollered and screamed for the formation to slow down to protect Harl.” Later he learned that no one heard his radio call. Aboard Queenie, Pvt. Edward L. Troccia saw Pease’s bomber “going down with both inboard engines on fire.” And in another B-17, Capt. John D. Bridges observed Pease’s auxiliary fuel tank drop in flames from the bomb bay. He used his intercom to ask the upper turret gunner: “Where’s Pease? What happened to Pease?” But the gunner, still banging away at Zeros with his twin machine guns, was too preoccupied to respond.
All of the B-17s carried a four-hundred-gallon auxiliary fuel tank in the bomb bay, and according to Dick Carmichael, the tank mounted in Why Don’t We Do This More Often lacked a self-sealing liner. That alone would have been reason enough to restrict the bomber from combat. In a 1980 interview Carmichael stated: “Unfortunately, [Pease] had one of those old … auxiliary tanks… . He had one that was not the bulletproof type. He had [one of] those metal tanks. I guess nobody knew it, maybe he didn’t pay much attention to it, or at least he didn’t change it. We had to have a bomb-bay tank to get to Rabaul and back. So I think that’s what did him in on the way back. He was hit and caught afire.”
Despite heavy damage and the fire in the bomb bay, Why Don’t We Do This More Often stayed in the air a remarkably long time. It finally came to grief forty nautical miles south of Rabaul, most of it torn apart on impact, though one large section of the fuselage landed in the Powell River a few miles upstream from Tol plantation. Native villagers found it in the water with three bodies floating nearby. On a subsequent visit the corpses were no longer there, having either been washed downstream or scavenged by crocodiles. Part of the cockpit was later discovered some distance from the river with the bodies of the copilot and the radio operator still inside. Pease’s crew numbered nine men according to most accounts, which meant that four were unaccounted for.
DESPITE THE LOSS of Pease’s crew and the other combat casualties, George Kenney was ecstatic about the apparent success of the mission. Gunners in the B-17s claimed to have shot down seven Zeros, and the bombardiers scored a “bull’s-eye” on Vunakanau airdrome. Or so Kenney believed. Relying on earlier intelligence estimates and an intercepted enemy message, he was convinced that the attack had destroyed dozens of enemy planes. His autobiography, written years later, exaggerated almost every facet of the mission. Kenney wrote that eighteen heavy bombers conducted the strike and shot down “eleven of the twenty Jap fighters that participated.” He also wrote that 150 aircraft were parked “wingtip to wingtip on both sides of the runway at Vunakanau” and implied that reconnaissance photos taken afterward showed at least 75 had been destroyed. For evidence he referred to the intercepted message, transmitted from Rabaul on the afternoon of the attack, in which Rear Admiral Yamada reported that he had thirty land attack aircraft operational for the following day. Misinterpreting the report, Kenney took it to mean the Japanese had “only” thirty bombers remaining.
In reality, the raid had caused only superficial damage. Within hours of the attack, the airdrome was repaired sufficiently for the rikko of the 4th Air Group to land after their raid on American ships at Guadalcanal. Twenty-two bombers came back (four had been shot down and one ditched at sea), and another subsequently cracked up while landing. The losses were offset by the arrival of nine Type 1s of the Misawa Air Group, rushed from Tinian on the afternoon of August 7 to augment Yamada’s offensive firepower. (Two more chutais of Type 1s, totaling eighteen aircraft, were scheduled to arrive the following day.) After factoring in the combat losses, the nine additional bombers gave Yamada a total of thirty-five medium bombers at Rabaul, a net gain of three aircraft. Thus his statement that thirty planes were operational on August 7 is absolutely plausible. Undoubtedly several aircraft that had participated in the strike against Guadalcanal needed repairs for battle damage or mechanical issues.
In fact, Yamada’s message proved that not a single Japanese plane had been destroyed on the ground at Vunakanau. When the Fortresses attacked, virtually all of the land attack aircraft were heading toward Guadalcanal or conducting searches. As for fighter units, the Japanese combat logs show that no Zeros fell in action over Rabaul, though approximately a dozen were damaged.
The raid, which cost the 19th Bomb Group two Flying Fortresses and eleven men killed or missing, caused no real harm to the Japanese. Despite the fact that the B-17s hit nothing but dirt, the attack did yield benefits for Kenney, who later boasted: “The Marines landed at Guadalcanal with practically no opposition. Tulagi was also taken, but with a little more fighting. There was no Jap air interference.” How could he have overlooked the fifty-three Japanese planes that attacked from Rabaul? How could he have overlooked the nine American navy aircraft shot down in the vicinity of Guadalcanal by Rabaul-based Zeros? Kenney’s claim was a gross exaggeration. Nevertheless he was the new star of the SWPA, receiving congratulatory messages from MacArthur and others, which he passed on to the 19th Bomb Group.
There were additional benefits for the B-17 men. For one thing, Kenney’s exhilaration over the mission’s apparent success was infectious. He singlehandedly boosted the morale of his “boys,” telling them they’d done an outstanding job, and to prove it he handed out a boxful of medals. Before the mission, Carmichael had told Kenney that no one in the 19th Bomb Group had been decorated in months—which probably had something to do with the group’s abysmal combat record. Luckily for them, Kenney believed that “little bits of pretty ribbon had helped in World War I; maybe they would help in this one, too.” The cherry on top came from MacArthur, who told Kenney, “Don’t forget to pass out as many decorations as you think fit.”
Kenney didn’t hold back. Dick Carmichael was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for heroism in armed conflict. Several other participants received the Silver Star, the nation’s third highest award for valor. Among them was a lead bombardier who had fired his nose gun at the attacking Zeros, then moved to the bombsig
ht, dropped his bombs, and returned to the nose gun to shoot at more Zeros. He wasn’t wounded, but did essentially what was expected of any bombardier under combat conditions.
After doling out a slew of lesser medals and some Purple Hearts, Kenney wrote a recommendation for a Medal of Honor. Privately he thought Harl Pease had “had no business in the show,” but he presumed that Pease’s B-17 had crashed with no survivors. Kenney deemed his sacrifice worthy of the nation’s highest award, and MacArthur heartily endorsed the recommendation. Approval followed quickly. Congress made it official on November 4, and four weeks later President Roosevelt presented the medal to Pease’s parents in a ceremony at the White House.
Ironically, the presumption that Pease and everyone aboard his bomber had perished was wrong. Pease and Master Sgt. Chester M. Czechowski, the tail gunner, bailed out of the B-17 before it crashed. A third crewman may have followed.* As Pease and Czechowski floated down in their parachutes, one or more Zero pilots deliberately opened fire, and Pease was shot through the lower leg. Unable to evade on the ground, he and Czechowski were captured within a day or two. Both were taken to the Malaguna Road stockade around August 10, whereupon Pease requested medical attention. One of the Japanese laughed and said, “We don’t treat American airmen!”
Fortunately for Pease, a civilian prisoner possessed some basic medical supplies, and under his daily treatments Pease made a gradual recovery. But he never learned about the Medal of Honor. By the time Congress voted to approve the award, the situation at Rabaul had changed drastically.
CHAPTER 20
The Personification of Evil
THE CAPTURE OF Captain Pease and Master Sergeant Czechowski in early August brought the number of military prisoners at Rabaul to approximately two dozen aviators. At least ten were Australians, including Kittyhawk pilot David Brown and the nine-man crew of Allan Norman’s Catalina.
Four other captives were from a 3rd Bomb Group B-25 that ditched near Salamaua on May 23. The Mitchell bomber had been forced down by Zeros of the Tainan Air Group, but the crew survived thanks to the skill of 1st Lt. Henry A. Keel, who made a textbook water landing in the Huon Gulf. After exiting the plane, Cpl. Louis E. Murphy avoided capture by swimming hard toward the open gulf, but Keel and three others were picked up by a Japanese boat crew and taken to naval headquarters at Salamaua. The sixth member of the crew has never been accounted for.
Murphy floated alone in the Huon Gulf for nearly forty-eight hours before the currents pushed him ashore. Found by local natives, he was carried to an encampment of New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, who had been hiding in the hills since January. While resting under their care, Murphy was joined by the crew of a Mitchell shot down during a disastrous raid on May 25. Out of eight B-25s that attacked Lae without fighter escort, five were shot down and a sixth crash-landed with battle damage.
By the time Murphy returned to Port Moresby, Keel and the other captured crewmen were almost certainly at Rabaul. Little is known of their experiences in captivity on New Guinea, except that the senior naval officer provided them with Japanese clothing because they were “only partly clad” when picked up. One crewmember, a sergeant, had been wounded on May 23, and Keel was reportedly ill when he reached Rabaul. Both men were hospitalized under the care of Lt. Chihiro Yamaguchi, a navy physician, but their condition did not improve.
About five days after Keel and the unnamed sergeant entered the hospital, the commanding officer of the 81st Naval Garrison Unit learned that both men were “in a bad way.” Captain Mizusaki conferred with Rear Adm. Keisuke Matsumaga, chief of staff of the 8th Base Force, who ordered the two Americans executed. The following day, they were taken to the usual site at the foot of Tavurvur volcano. Doctor Yamaguchi accompanied the pair, later claiming that he “administered what comfort he could,” but his attempts at kindness counted for little. The master at arms of the 81st Naval Garrison Unit, WO Kunihei Fujisaki, decapitated both prisoners.
The other two captives from the B-25, thought to be Lt. Durwood R. Reed (copilot) and Sgt. Thomas Marsh, RAAF (lower turret gunner), remained in the custody of the 81st Naval Garrison Unit, and by early August they were joined by at least five new prisoners. Among them was Lt. David S. Hunter, the first American fighter pilot captured in the region. (Another P-39 pilot, Lt. Edward D. Durand, was shot down over Lae on April 30. There have been persistent rumors that he was captured, and within his own squadron it was considered “common knowledge” that the Japanese had executed him on New Guinea, but no confirmation of either his capture or his death has ever been established.)
Hunter, who flew a P-400 export variant of the Airacobra in the 80th Fighter Squadron, had been shot down during a strafing mission over Gona on July 22. Postwar interrogations with various Japanese guards indicate that he was hospitalized at Rabaul for “burns or light wounds … and was getting well.” After his release from the hospital he was placed in a camp run by the Kempeitai, presumably the same enclosure where Sergeant Brown was held.
Two other newcomers were Harold Massie and Arthur King, who were in terrible condition. Ten weeks had passed since Massie ditched their damaged B-26 in Wide Bay, south of Rabaul. Since that time he had been desperately scrounging for food with his crewmen until only he and King remained strong enough to walk. Barefoot, the two men set off for Open Bay on July 27, hoping to meet up with coastwatcher John Stokie on New Britain’s north coast. But before they could find him they were captured, probably after walking into a village inhabited by pro-Japanese natives.
Two Australian coastwatchers were also among the new prisoners at Rabaul. The remarkable story of Cecil Mason and Roy Woodroffe had begun months earlier, when they were among a half-dozen coastwatchers stationed on New Ireland and its neighboring islands. During the first months of the war the men were left alone, mainly because the Japanese were too preoccupied with fortress-building to search for individuals hiding in the jungle. After the minsei-bu was established on New Ireland at the end of May, the Japanese became more concerned about the coastwatchers’ presence. Using a combination of coercion and bribes, the Japanese subjugated the native islanders, and the coastwatchers gradually lost their influence over all but a few loyal friends.
Thirty-year-old Cornelius “Con” Page, a planter in the Tabar Islands east of New Ireland, could see for himself that the Japanese were slowly closing in. His home, a plantation called Pigibut, was raided only five days after the fall of Rabaul. Headquarters at Townsville had urged him to bury his radio and move to safety, but Page stubbornly refused to leave. A twentieth-century Robinson Crusoe, he’d “gone native” years earlier, taking an island girl named Ansin Bulu as his common-law wife. Page answered to no authority but his own: he was the lord of his little tropical island.
In March 1942, the navy awarded Page a commission as a sublieutenant in the reserves, the idea being that if he were captured he might be treated as a prisoner of war rather than as a spy. Officials even sent a naval cap and epaulets with the next supply drop, a gesture without precedent in the Royal Australian Navy, but the symbols of rank were both too little and too late to bolster Page’s sagging reputation. Within a few months virtually all of the natives except Ansin Bulu had turned against him. Page finally agreed to be picked up, but the aging American submarine sent to rescue him suffered a breakdown and had to withdraw to Brisbane.
On June 8, troops of the Kure No. 3 Special Naval Landing Force raided Page’s island, Simberi. They hunted him down for three days, even using dogs and armed natives, but Page somehow eluded them all. The sailors did succeed in capturing Ansin Bulu before returning to their base at Kavieng, so Page, realizing the Japanese would return with reinforcements, sent an emergency signal to Townsville on June 12. His one chance of rescue, he advised, would be to have a flying boat pick him up on the west side of the island. A Catalina took off from Cairns on the evening of June 16 and made a careful inspection of the island at very low altitude, but nothing was seen of Page.
In the meantime, John
S. Talmage, a veteran of World War I who owned a plantation on a nearby island, had joined Page in the hopes of being rescued. Unfortunately for both men, a platoon of SNLF returned to the Tabar Islands on June 14 aboard the auxiliary minesweeper Seki Maru No. 3. The naval infantry chased Page and Talmage from island to island for six days before finally running them to ground on June 20. The sailors seemed impressed with the coastwatchers. One wrote in his diary: “With the use of wireless, they have broadcast the movement of our troops to Port Moresby and Australia. These spies were devastating to us.”
Page and Talmage were taken to the Kavieng jail on June 21, whereupon the SNLF went in search of two other coastwatchers holed up on New Ireland. Alan F. “Bill” Kyle, a veteran of the Great War and a former administrator in the Namatani agricultural district, and Gregory W. Benham, a warrant officer in the district police, had become coastwatchers by default. After the Japanese invasion in January, both men passed up opportunities for evacuation, willfully staying behind in order to coordinate rescues for other parties.
