Authors: Martin Caidin
"None, sir. None that we know of."
"Ah. That is so."
"Then there is another field of which we know nothing. But it cannot be too far away."
Commander Gaishi Naogaka rose to his feet.
"With your permission, sir, tomorrow morning we will begin our campaign. We are at full strength again. We will hunt down the B-25s at their home field, wherever it may be.
If we cannot catch these devils in the air then we shall destroy them on the ground."
"You will be pleased, then," Terauchi spoke softly, "to know there are other orders from Rabaul." He tapped the papers before him. "Indeed, commencing as of tomorrow morning, Rabaul has laid on a heavy bomber force to strike at the airfields at Moresby.
Seventy-four bombers, and the Lae Wing will provide escort with forty-eight fighters.
We will catch them on the ground
and
in the air. And you, Gaishi, shall lead the attack."
24
"Ah! I see the chef from the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo is visiting us once again." Petty Officer Masao Wada slipped behind the table in his billet and nodded to the meal before him. "Good morning, breakfast! I wonder which one of us will survive this encounter —
you, or my stomach." The other pilots laughed at Wada. His was a daily routine. But it helped the sameness of food every day, of breakfast that was always a dish of rice, soybean-paste soup with dried vegetables, and pickles. At least they had given up on the barley. That twisted a man's innards.
They ate quickly and went directly to their planes. The last man to leave the billet blew out the candles on the table. First light was just streaking the eastern horizon. They would be flying soon. Rabaul was sending down a powerful bomber force for them to escort and they wanted the strike to take place directly after sunrise.
Six fighters were pulled from the line, pilots by the wing or in their cockpits. The emergency standby force, engines always ready to turn over instantly. The men waved to one another as they went to their individual Zeros. They looked toward the fighter with diagonal stripes, closest to the runway. Commander Gaishi Naogaka would personally lead this mission.
It would be a good strike. Once the bombers had hit, the fighter pilots were free to go to the deck, to shoot at whatever targets presented themselves on the ground. They would flush out the rabbits today!
A strange sound. That whistling; eerie. Bombs? They scanned the sky. Nothing in the growing light. A few birds, but that was all.
Standing on his wing, his face showing his puzzlement, it was Gaishi Naogaka who at the last moment recognized the terrible cry. "Take cover! Take cover!" he shouted, waving his arms furiously. "Everybody
get down
!"
Mortar shells
. It was impossible, but as quickly as the realization came, the first shells erupted in spurts of dark red flame. One after the other the shells fell, arcing down from the sky with their awful whistling shriek. A Zero went up in a huge blast of fire, another spun around, breaking its gear and crumpling a wing. Even under the barrage Naogaka saw that it was a random shelling, intended to hit anywhere along the runway or the parked planes. No one could tell where the shells would land next. The Japanese commander cursed soundly — there are no Japanese troops out there in the jungle growth! He looked at the antiaircraft units; they were depressing their weapons to fire into the underbrush but could see no targets. The fools — Naogaka shouted orders and two squads of sailors with rifles in their hands ran from the field to the growth. The first squad began to crumple like rag dolls. But not from mortar shells. Naogaka saw the puffs of dirt where machine-gun bullets were striking about the men.
A cluster of shells ripped along the runway and the terrible truth dawned suddenly. He clambered back atop his wing where the others could see him. "Start your engines!" he screamed, turning about to repeat his orders so that all might hear despite the staccato bursts of the shells. "Start your engines! Take off at once!" He ducked as a nearby blast smashed against his body, rocking his airplane. Quickly, now. Into the cockpit. Good; the mechanics were still there, awaiting his orders. He gave the signal to start the engine.
The rest would follow his example. He glanced up. A fuel truck vanished in a blinding flash. Smoke poured into the sky. Above the din he heard muffled explosions; more shells, perhaps grenades. The popping of light machine guns drifted across the field.
Three more fighters were burning or broken and still they had not seen their assailants.
Gaishi Naogaka had a terrible feeling and the sound of sirens howling, two sirens, one at each end of the field, cut through him like a knife. Enemy air attack… and Naogaka
knew
, he knew by whatever deep instinct runs through men like him, that it would be those same damned B-25s that have been giving them so much trouble. Frantic, he cursed and shouted for the engine to start —
"Okay, we're coming up on Lae now. Everybody start spreading out. We're going into them Indian file. Look sharp, troops."
Whip Russel glanced left and right. The formation of B-25s was easing apart, sliding into six elements of two bombers each. They flew just above the waters of Huon Gulf, the sun directly behind them, just breaking the horizon. It was a beautiful cocoon of light.
"We'll hold this course until we're ready to break to the left," Whip said to Alex Bartimo.
"Righto. Wonder how our friend from down under is doing. He should be — aha!" Alex pointed far off to their left. "You can just make it out. There; see the smoke? Drifting just above the horizon." Alex pressed his transmit button. "Group from Lead. Our jungle friends have made contact. Lae is taking its beating. We have drifting smoke in sight.
They should be rather unhappy with what's going on, so stay sharp."
They flew on, the coastline to their left growing larger as they edged shoreward, angling toward the land, setting up their approach so that visual contact with the Lae runway would come only at the last moment. "Okay. About two minutes from now," Whip called. "Break left on my turn. I'll go in first to wake 'em up, and you people carry on in your elements."
"Yes, teacher."
"Who's the wise-ass?"
"
Him
," came a chorus of voices.
The Sakae engine finally burst into the sweet thunder Gaishi Naogaka knew so well. His mechanic was signaling the all clear to him. Naogaka looked behind at other pilots with engines turning over. His fist pumped up and down in the unmistakable signal to scramble. Emergency takeoff. Get into the air as quickly as possible.
He turned to taxi to the runway, looking ahead to clear his path. In that moment his blood froze. What he saw was insane. And he knew that this was likely the last thing he would ever see in this world.
Off the end of the runway, great propellers flashing to either side of those enormous white teeth was an American bomber —
and the landing gear was extending into the
wind
.
Even as he watched, the nose of the machine vanished in a dazzling glare of orange light. Well ahead of the Yankee devil dust erupted on the ground and Naogaka knew the main antiaircraft position had just been torn apart.
Wild for release, Naogaka rammed forward on the throttle. The Zero responded instantly, jerking forward, starting to roll, its pilot staring in continued disbelief before him.
Were the Americans crazy? Did they intend to
land
here in the midst of this attack? He stared and in that instant, as other bombers drifted into view in a long line, Gaishi Naogaka knew what his enemy was doing. He understood, and despite the moment, and the overwhelming power about to descend upon him, he was filled with admiration, a respect for his opponent, for what he was doing. All this time the Zero had been darting forward, grabbing for speed. Did he have enough speed to fly? Could the machine get into the air? It was his only chance and he snatched at it, pulling up the gear even before he came back on the stick, and he felt the Zero lurch,
but it was flying
…
"Look at that son of a bitch in front, willya?"
"The bloke's trying, I'll say that."
"If he gets up he could be trouble."
"One Zero? We'll eat him alive."
Whip had a touch of contempt in his voice. "I hate the bastards, Alex, but I don't sell them short. And that one's in perfect position to ram. We've got to nail him right
now
."
Alex never failed to amaze him. The flak guns to either side of the runway were reaching out for them and they were taking hits, shudders they felt through metal, and in a singsong voice, finger and thumb cocked like a gun, Alex was half singing to the Zero directly before them, "Bye-bye, baby."
Naogaka was just about to turn, to make a desperate attempt to flick-roll the Zero from before the path of the devilship coming straight at him. The wing of his fighter lifted and he was kicking heavy rudder when through his windscreen he again saw that great flash of orange light. The entire front of the bomber vanished in the sudden glare and Gaishi Naogaka knew what was happening.
He had only that one instant as the eight heavy machine guns in the nose and the four guns slabbed onto the fuselage fired. A thunderbolt of flame lashed out and caressed the Zero. Naogaka's last thoughts, befitting the warrior, were of what was happening. He understood fully now what the Americans were doing, that with their gear down and the propellers in fine pitch the bombers had become rock-stable gun platforms. Speed was less important here than accuracy, and the Yankees could hazard their slow flying because the mortar attack had so thoroughly disrupted the Lae warning system and its defenses. It was a daring and a brilliant gamble.
But then Naogaka thought no more.
The climbing Zero was stopped — literally — in midair. The mass of bullets under high velocity represented an enormous force and the impact was as if two locomotives had crashed head-on. In a single timeless moment that seemed to last forever the Sakae engine pulped, tore away and the Zero began a wild cartwheel that never ended, because by the time it had completed only the first half of its gyration the wings were gone, and only burning, scattering wreckage remained in the air, falling in a blazing spray back toward the runway.
A short burst and the second Zero to make it into the air lost its left wing, spinning away like a sheet of paper in the wind, sending the Zero through the air in a berserk flat-wheeling of destruction. It pancaked into the runway and the torn fuel tanks let go and the fighter vanished within the great rose blossom of flame.
"Let 'em go!"
The bombs began spilling away. "Coombs, what the hell have we got back there?" Whip shouted into his microphone.
"Good release! Jesus Christ, it's like it's snowing back here! Those chutes are everywhere!"
The first element was coming over the end of the runway, and at the far end, the inland side, Whip had the gear coming up and his speed building rapidly. "Watch that flak gun to the north. The son of a bitch is hot."
"Got 'em, boss. We'll hose him down a bit." A long burst from the third B-25. Leaves, tree trunks, sandbags, antiaircraft gun and men exploded from the strafing pass.
The bombers were dumping their loads into the air. Lae appeared to have been covered with a mass of confetti. Then the parafrags began to hit.
Whip had made a high-speed climbing turn on the land side of the airstrip and as he brought the nose around and down to gain speed he and Alex had a perfect view of the airfield. Lae looked all the world like a pinball game gone mad. Every bursting parafrag exploded with a dazzling flash, and from the thirteen bombers there were thirteen hundred bombs raining down.
It was carnage, pure and simple. The parafrags burst at ground level, sending their blast and shrapnel horizontally instead of wasting energy digging deep holes in the ground.
Zero fighters had been hit all along the runway, and flames and smoke poured into the sky.
"Stay right, stay right," Whip chanted to the last bombers still pounding over the field, raking the planes and men on the ground with their awesome firepower. Side gunners and turret gunners were hammering out bursts from their positions, and Whip came screaming back down the runway, in the opposite direction now, pouring savage bursts of fire into any target that appeared before them.
It was impossible but the Japanese managed to get seven fighters into the air. If they were great on other occasions they were maddened now and pressed their attacks home to pointblank range, disdaining the defensive fire of the turret gunners.
A Zero took on the row of bombers in a long head-on pass. Kessler in Number Two horsed back on the yoke to get a heavy burst into the fighter, but the Japanese pilot was throwing his Zero about in maneuvers that were bordering on the hysterical. He bored in to the center of the line and his heavy cannon shells smashed into the cockpit of Jim Whitson's bomber. Whitson and Second Lieutenant Allan Hillbrink died instantly.
There was no fire, but in a convulsive spasm of death, the pilot must have jerked the yoke full back. The stricken B-25 leaped skyward, rolling slowly, until the speed fell away, and then the nose whipped around and the airplane, still under full power, dove into the jungle off to the side of the runway and exploded.
One Zero went up in a ball of flame, but the bombers were taking heavy damage from the fierce attacks. "Close it up! Close it up!" Whip shouted into his radio. The B-25s scrambled together, joining their defensive firepower. It threw off the aim of the fanatically attacking Zeros, and the Americans were more afraid of deliberate ramming than of holding off the enemy fighters. Hoot Gibson lost his left engine but hung in with the formation, beating his right engine half to death on emergency overboost.
Heavy rain showers were hugging the upper slopes of the Owen Stanley Range and Whip Russel chose discretion.
"Let's go home, troops," he sang out to the other pilots. "Haney and McCamish, you take Hoot home the long way around."