War Stories II: Heroism in the Pacific

by Oliver North

  In Washington, the Joint Chiefs seized on the moment to establish priorities for the next offensive steps against Japan. Recognizing that the European theater was still the main war effort, they nonetheless developed what they called the “Strategic Plan for the Defeat of Japan.” It called for:

  • Cutting the flow of oil and resources to Japan with intensive submarine attacks

  • Sustained aerial bombing of Japanese-held territory

  • Retaking the Aleutian islands seized by Japan

  • A central pacific attack from Hawaii west toward the Home Islands

  • A two-pronged attack north from New Guinea and the Solomons to capture Rabaul.

  Nimitz wasted no time in implementing his part of the grand design. On 26 March, before the Strategic Plan even received its final approval, he launched an attack aimed at ejecting the Japanese from Attu and Kiska—the two Aleutian islands seized in June 1942 during the Battle of Midway. By 30 May 1943, the U.S. Army’s 7th Infantry Division had retaken Attu—but not before the Japanese killed scores of wounded American soldiers in a final banzai charge on the hospital. Before the Americans could invade Kiska in August, the Japanese succeeded in evacuating their garrison—undetected by the Americans—who unwittingly proceeded to conduct an uncontested full-scale amphibious assault against the island.

  While the warlords in Tokyo were willing to write off the territory in the Aleutians, that was certainly not the case in the South Pacific. While Nimitz and MacArthur paused to build up their forces for their dual drives on Rabaul, Yamamoto was busy shoring up its outer defenses. But despite his best efforts, the tide had turned.

  In early March, during the three-day Battle of the Bismarck Sea, his once vaunted fleet lost seven of eight transports and four of eight destroyers—along with 3,650 men and twenty-five aircraft—during an attempt to reinforce the Japanese garrison at Lea on the north coast of New Guinea. A subsequent bombing raid in late March against Guadalcanal—already becoming a major American and Allied naval and air base—by more than 300 aircraftcost him forty aircraft and their experienced pilots. Now, increasingly concerned about the state of readiness for an anticipated American offensive against Bougainville, Yamamoto decided to see for himself how prepared his forces really were. It was a deadly mistake.

  The coded radio message with Yamamoto’s detailed itinerary was intercepted and passed to Station Hypo code-breakers. With President Roosevelt’s personal authorization, U.S. Army Air Force P-38s launched from Henderson Field to intercept and kill the mastermind of Japan’s naval strategy. At 0935 on 18 April 1943, one year to the day since Jimmy Doolittle’s daring raid on Tokyo, the man who planned the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was himself surprised. As the “Betty” bomber in which he was a passenger approached Bougainville at 4,500 feet, sixteen P-38s pounced out of the sun. According to postwar reports, Yamamoto was dead before his flaming plane hit the ground.

  Yamamoto’s successor as head of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Mineichi Koga, quickly devoted himself to the same task as his deceased predecessor: protecting Rabaul. He clearly understood that the heavily defended base on the north coast of New Britain—with its 100,000 battle-tested Japanese troops and 600 aircraft spread over five different airfields and naval facilities—was the primary American objective in the South Pacific. He set out to do everything in his power to keep the Americans from realizing their goal—or failing that, to make it as costly as possible.

  His first steps were to continue reinforcing the islands between Guadalcanal and Rabaul—and to slow MacArthur’s advance to the east on New Guinea as much as possible. He reinvigorated nighttime deliveries by the Tokyo Express, even relying on submarines to deliver supplies and reinforcements when necessary. By mid-June Koga convinced his reluctant staff to try a major air raid against Guadalcanal—even though the once-contested island now had five air bases, more than 300 aircraft, scores of anti-aircraft batteries, and a major port operation with U.S., Australian, and New Zealand combatants in the roadstead, all with alert anti-aircraft gunners.

  The raid by seventy Zekes—the latest version of the infamous Zero—and twenty-four heavy bombers was a disaster. All but one of Koga’s planes was downed—at a cost of four American and two New Zealand fighters.

  The disastrous June air raid on Guadalcanal had another unanticipated adverse consequence for Admiral Koga besides the loss of his planes and pilots. It convinced Halsey that it was time to get moving north—up the Solomons—to wrest the fortress of Bougainville from Japanese control. But first he had to eliminate two enemy air bases that threatened his advance: one at Munda on New Georgia Island and the other at Vila on nearby Kolombangara Island.

  On 30 June, Admiral Turner, commanding the 3rd Amphibious Force, landed 6,000 Marines and soldiers on New Georgia and promptly seized the Munda airstrip. The Seabees followed immediately to patch the runway, and the first American aircraft prepared to land on the captured airstrip within seventy-two hours of the landing. But it didn’t go as planned.

  The plan called for a quick clearing operation and then an attack to seize the airstrip at Vila, on Kolombangara, less than ten miles away across the Kula Gulf. But just as on Guadalcanal, the bottom fell out of Turner’s timetable.

  The 4,500 well-entrenched Japanese troops on New Georgia might have lost their airstrip, but they weren’t about to give up. The dogged defenders held on for more than a month—requiring the commitment of 32,000 soldiers and 1,700 Marines. And, as was becoming the custom, those Japanese troops who couldn’t be evacuated by the Tokyo Express fought to the last man.

  That was enough to convince Halsey that he should skip the heavily defended Vila airdrome and seize the lightly held Japanese island of Vella Lavella, fifty miles to the north. On 14 August, 6,000 troops from New Georgia were backloaded onto waiting amphibious ships and landed the following morning on the southwest coast of Vella Lavella. Once again the Seabees rushed ashore and in a matter of forty-eight hours constructed a rough but functional fighter strip. As soon as they finished, Marine, Army and Navy aircraft came winging in to protect the troops ashore and the ships of the amphibious force.

  The Americans were finally on the move toward Rabaul. Though Nimitz, MacArthur, and Halsey realized that there were long and difficult battles ahead, there was no longer any doubt that U.S. superiority on the sea and in the air were essential ingredients for successful operations on the ground.

  By the summer of 1943, U.S. air superiority could be measured in both quantity and quality. Army, Navy, and Marine air training commands had quadrupled the output of pilots, navigators, gunners, bombardiers, mechanics, and air crewmen from the levels achieved in 1942. In that same time frame, the production of new and better aircraft had increased seven-fold. The quantitative and qualitative edge the Japanese had enjoyed the previous year was now gone.

  For the first months of the war, the Mitsubishi A6M Reisen, or “Zero,” ruled the skies over the Pacific. These planes were light, fast, and were also equipped with heavy armament—two 20 mm cannons and a pair of 7.7 mm nose-mounted machine guns.

  The Zero was a proven plane, having been battle-tested in China for more than a year before the first ones appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. It had proven itself superior to any other aircraft in China, Burma, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies.

  So too had most of the Japanese pilots, many of whom had ten years of combat experience. The age of the average American pilot was nineteen.

  A typical Zero pilot wore a parachute and a harness and carried a small pistol—not for personal protection but as a “suicide weapon.” In the Japanese warrior tradition it was dishonorable to be captured or to surrender—suicide was preferable to the dishonor of defeat or surrender.

  But the Japanese no longer ruled the skies. By the spring of 1943 Army P-38s and Marine Chance-Vought F4U Corsairs were being delivered in significant numbers. The Marines inherited the powerful, gull-winged fighters from the Navy when a landing
gear problem caused the F4U to fail its aircraft carrier qualification. Though the Corsair was not as maneuverable as the Zero, the Marines loved it for its powerful rate of climb and firepower. Corsair pilots called it “Hog Nose” for its massive front cowling. It was powered by a 2,000-horsepower supercharged radial engine—nearly twice the horsepower of the Zero. And with six .50-caliber machine guns in the wings, the Corsair was also better armed.

  The Reisen or “Zero.”

  As Halsey started island-hopping up the Solomons in the summer of 1943, Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-214—flying their new Corsairs— became a key component in the successful drive. The squadron was commanded by a scrappy, thirty-one-year-old Marine combat pilot named Gregory Boyington. Born in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Boyington had received his commission and as an aviation cadet served in the Marines. But in August of 1941 he resigned his commission to join Claire Chennault’s Air Volunteer Group in China, the Flying Tigers. The pay was good and the pilots got a $500 bonus for every confirmed kill.

  In his autobiography, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Boyington claimed to have shot down six aircraft while with the Flying Tigers. But the official records state that he had only two aerial victories that could be documented. Boyington argued that he should have been paid for the four enemy planes he had destroyed while they were sitting on the tarmac at a Japanese-held air base in China.

  Pappy Boyington led the Black Sheep Squadron.

  It may have been after his stint with the Flying Tigers that someone came up with the nickname “Pappy.” At thirty-one, he was one of the “old” men of the unit. But he also had another nickname—“Black Sheep”—which he earned with the Flying Tigers. General John Alison said, “He was a liability. He lost airplanes; he got lost, landed wheels up . . . and, well, you know what Pappy’s problem was? He drank too much. Chennault sent him back to the United States. He got a commission as a Marine major in the reserves, and was sent overseas in January of 1943.”

  The decision on who should command the newly constituted VMF-214 Marine squadron fell to the assistant commanding general of the 1st Marine Air Wing, Brigadier General James “Nuts” Moore. Major Boyington landed on Espiritu Santo about when General Moore was trying to make that decision. Perhaps more on the basis of his tenure as a combat pilot than for his spotty record with the Flying Tigers, Major Boyington was picked as CO of VMF-214.

  Now the squadron needed a new name. The men in the squadron submitted all kinds of names, including a few that were outright profane. The Marine public information office did their best to discourage those, reminding the men that it would prevent them from sending news releases to hometown newspapers publicizing their exploits. How could they do that with a squadron name they couldn’t print in a family newspaper?

  Eventually common sense took over and the name of VMF-214 became the “Black Sheep Squadron.” The pilots of VMF-214 were combat-trained by Pappy Boyington. What his green pilots lacked in seat time they made up in strategies, taught to them by their leader in colorful sessions on the ground. In earthy, blunt terms, he preached to them, “Whenever you see a Japanese plane, kill it. That’s our mission. Pick one out and kill it.”

  The Black Sheep Squadron did just as they were ordered. Their first mission was to fly escort for twelve B-24s on a bombing run to Kahili.

  The flight turned into a pitched battle with Japanese Zeros, covering some 200 miles of sea and airspace during a brief forty-five minutes. When it was over, sixteen of the twenty-four Black Sheep fighter pilots had seen combat action for the very first time.

  The squadron claimed eleven Japanese planes downed in the battle that day, with Pappy getting the credit for five of those kills. In their first month of combat, the Black Sheep Squadron was credited with fifty-seven kills and nineteen “probables,” and their fame grew. And so did the pressure on Pappy Boyington to get even more victories. During the next three months under Boyington, the unit claimed ninety-four enemy aircraft shot down.

  On 15 August, Halsey’s amphibious forces, aided by the Black Sheep Squadron flying cover, landed on small Vella Lavella Island, where the Seabees immediately went to work building the airstrip that would become the newest forward air base for VMF-214.

  Lieutenant John “Jack” Bolt, a twenty-three-year-old aviator and instructor from Florida, had been flying combat missions over the Solomons since May. Two Marine aviators, Lieutenants Henry “Hank” McCartney and Henry “Boo” Bourgeois, just a year younger than Bolt, arrived about the same time.

  LIEUTENANT HENRY MCCARTNEY, USMC

  Solomon Islands

  18 September 1943

  1530 Hours Local

  Guadalcanal was no fun. Munda was no fun either. Living on Munda was miserable. There was no place to take a shower or a bath. The guys would go down to a creek close by. The only tour in which I thought we had halfway decent living conditions was the tour I spent on the Russell Islands.

  Our friends in the Marine artillery had a 105 right up in back of my tent. And they’d do harassing fire against the Japs. Of course, every time they’d fire that thing off, we’d come up out of the sack. And it was difficult to get a good night’s sleep.

  So one of the very first mutinies at Guadalcanal was the fighter pilots going down to Operations. They said, “Get that artillery gun out, or you won’t have any fighter pilots.” They moved it.

  I came into the squadron January of ’43, with four kills to my credit. I may have had more than Pappy at that time. All together, I’m credited with five and a half, and three probables.

  Our first combat tour with 214 was relatively quiet. When they came back from the second tour, that’s when they developed the concept of the fighter sweeps and there were more enemy aircraft challenging us. That’s when our scores went up.

  LIEUTENANT HENRY BOURGEOIS, USMC

  Vella Lavella Island

  21 September 1943

  1500 Hours Local

  I always wanted to be an aviator. And when a recruiting bunch came through, they got me. I’d already made up my mind I wanted to be a Marine.

  I got to Guadalcanal in January 1943. I was assigned to VMF-122, flew two combat missions with them, and went with Boyington when he organized 214.

  Since some of the other guys and I had combat experience, he selected eight of us as division leaders. The rest from the fighter pool would be new pilots. I flew my first mission with 214 out of the Russell Islands.

  On this one mission, I remember the bombers were to go after the shipping in the harbor. And, they were probably at 9,000 or 10,000 feet.

  We had sixteen Corsairs, closely covering the bombers, and above that some P-38s beyond sight, high up. We got up there, and saw that the whole harbor was covered with a thunderstorm.

  And the bombers pushed over early because they had to get down below. By the time they pushed over, a whole sky full of Japanese airplanes appeared, going after everybody.

  It quickly broke into an air-to-air dogfight. And, pretty soon, they’re all over the sky. I had somebody shooting at me. I’d go into a cloud, mill around a little, come out, and shoot at a Japanese airplane, get shot at again, go into a cloud, and come out and still try to stick with the bombers if we could.

  That was the typical type of gunfight. We lost two SBDs and two Corsairs that time. One of our SBD rear gunners claimed one Zero kill. And I think we claimed five or six.

  So I decided to head back to base, and I’m not paying too much attention to what I’m doing. I’m just flying along at about 5,000 to 7,000 feet and see tracers coming by. I look in the rearview mirror, and there’s a Zero back there, shooting at me. So, I two-blocked the throttle, and headed downhill as fast as I could. But the Zero was sticking with me.

  And this guy kept sneaking up and firing, sneaking up and firing—getting closer. Then I discovered I was headed in the wrong direction and running low on fuel. So I’m going to have to turn and fight this guy.

  I knew he was going out-turn me unless I did it first. I was just a
bout ready to do that when he turned back to his base.

  We did a lot of escort missions for B-24s, dive-bombers and torpedo bombers, and did a lot of strafing missions. Or we’d be protecting destroyers that had been hit, backing down a slot.

  Pappy Boyington was thirty-one years old then, at least seven years older than the rest of us. Major Boyington, in the air as a pilot, was a superior leader.

  If you talk about his accomplishments in the air as a flight leader, you can’t fault him. He was excellent. In two combat tours, we lost eleven pilots out of a total of fifty-four. And Pappy Boyington asked Bailey, Case, Beggart, and me to stay for a fourth combat tour. I said, “Pappy, I think my time’s running out. I’d better go back home.”

  FIRST LIEUTENANT

  JOHN F. “JACK” BOLT, USMC

  Vella Lavella Island

  28 September 1943

  0730 Hours Local

  From the beginning, we were facing pilots who had been in the Zero for several years. They probably had 500 or 600 flight hours. Our typical pilot in Joe Foss’s squadron or my squadron would have had maybe 150 or 200 flight hours.

  But we were finally getting experienced pilots who had been fighting the Zeros for three combat tours. Joe Foss was one of them. They were instructing us on the advantages and the disadvantages of fighting them.

  Boyington had acquired a tremendous amount of knowledge in his experiences in China, far more than anybody else had. And he could rev up the guys to do the best they could. He was a scoundrel, and charming, but we had a real good esprit de corps by the time we went into combat.