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'''PACTSept.-Oct., 1945

- - -SW AN SONG - - -This is the final issue of IMPACT. I t is devoted enti rely to the

part played by the Army Air Forces in the war against Japan. No at·tempt has been made to give a full account of the achievements of theNavy, Marines and Ground Forces.

It is believed appropriate, in thi s swan ong, to identify tho e whohave produced the magazine. IMPACT was brought to life in April,1943, by Mr. (then major, later lieutenant colonel ) Edward K.

Thompson of LIFE magazine. He was succeeded in June, 1944, by agroup of three edi tors: Lt. Col. Robert E. Girvin, formerly of theSan Francisco CHRONICLE; Major Maitland A. Edey and Capt. TomPrideaux, both formerly of LIFE. At war's end the editoria l staff alsoincluded Capt. Peter B. Greenough, formerly of the Cleveland PLAIN

DEALER ; Capt. Gordon G. Macnab, formerly of the Associated Pressand Capt. Hugh Fosburgh, formerly of LIFE. Layouts have beenby Sgt. David Stech, formerly of the Popular Science Publishing Co.,and maps and ar t by Sgt. Jerry Cominsky, former New York free lanceartist, and Sgt. Frank Chilton, formerly of the New York WORLD

TELEGRAM. Capt. Carl E. Hill has erved as execu tive officer. Allelse has been in the able hand of Miss Mary C. Morgan, form er ly

of the Montgomery, Ala., hi gh school.

Throughout its life, IMPACT has been printed by Schneidereith& Sons, Baltimore, Md.

- - - CONTENTS - - -Part 1-INTRODUCTION -A n analysi of why the Japanese lost the

war, pp. 1·5.

Part 2-THE LONG TREK -The story of the Fifth, Thirteen th, Seventh

and Eleventh Air Forces, pp. 6·31.

Part 3-ASIA FLANK-Story of the Tenth Air Force in India and theFourteenth in China, pp. 32·41.

Part 4-BLOCKADE-The war of attrition against Jap shipping and theB-29 mining blockade of the Homeland, pp. 42-51.

Part 5-THE B-2gerS -The life and achievements of the 20th Air

Force in tbe Marianas, pp. 52-83.

Part 6-B-29 PAYOFF-How the Twentieth Air Force wrecked the Jap

war economy in five months, pp. 84-93.

Part 7-ATOM BOMB -The two jolts at Hiroshima and Na{!asaki:Some speculation on the future, pp. 94-101.

Part B-FINALE-What the Japanese themselves have to say about theeffectiveness of the B-29, pp. l02 -Back Cover.

PICTURE CREDITS: Thi. i•• ue of IMPACT con tain , " inure, fromthree particular sources. First. to LIFE

Magazine IMPACT 'S thanktl fOT th e following: 99, bottom ; JOO. 101 . bottom:

)04, bottom; 110. bottom; 111, top : 112, 113 and back cover , a ll laken by

George Silk; and 65. tak en by W. Eugene Smith. In addition, tw o AAF

phologrsl}hers were assigned epecificalJy to ob tain pictures for thi s issue of

IMPACT. They ace Capt. Loom is Dean, who look the following: 52. 54. top

left ; 56, 57. 59. 66, except top left: 67. 68. bOllom; 70.71. 73. 77.81.82. top

and center; 83: and Capt. David F. Stevens. who took th e following: 98. 99,

top ; 101. top ; 102. 104, top; 105. 106. 107, 108, 109 . 1l0. top ; Il l . bollom left.

(Correction : Th e detonations along shore during the Balikpapan invasion 8.S pictured

on pages 46·47, IMPACT, Volume 3. No.8, were mis takenly altribu ted in the ("aillion

to aeria l bombardment. Th e explosions . immediately inshore of the first wave of

amphibious tractors. were cBused by rocke ts lired by LCI gun boat s and rocket shil)s

of Amphibious Group Eight. U. S. Pacilic Fleer. On the same I)ages. Balikpupan

beach defenses were mistakenly identilied as stee l rod s. actuall y they were log

bD.rricades which we re destroyed by amphibious underwater demdilion learns mukint

it possible for th e Altstralians to be delivered on the beachhead with dry feet.)

Printed for officia l use with approval of the Bureau of the Budget,Executive Office of the President.



THE BEGINNIN

- - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pearl Harbor, 7Dec. 19



Part IINTRODUCTIONWhy the Mortal Japs Failed as ~ ~ S o n s 01 Heaven

On 7 December, 1941, some crude leaflets fluttered down

on the carnage of Oahu. They said-"Goddam Americans

all go to hell." Period.

Thi s first abysmal effort at psychological warfare proved

one thing. It proved that the Japs knew as little about us

as we knew about them. A dispassionate observer on Hickam

field mi ght well have waved his hand at the departing Japs

and answered their leaflets on behalf of the American people

-"You dumb bastards."

We sensed, even then, that the Japs had made a stupendous

blunder such as on ly a misinformed, benighted, naIve people

could make. Although we were appalled and frightened by

what had happened, we knew that so me time, somehow, the

Japs would be sorr y. Not "so so rry." Just plain sorry.

Th e average American didn't have the slightest idea how

we we re go ing to beat the Japs. He had never thought much

about it. He kn ew that Japan was an island off the coast of

Asia inhabited by a preposterous musical comedy species of

humanity. He knew that to get there yo u had to cross thePacific - a huge expanse dotted by some islands named

Waikiki, Guam, the Philippines, Tahiti- and inhabited by

hu las, mi ss ionaries, and whales. That was about all. He had

never heard of logistics. He had never heard of a task force.

He had never heard of radar, amptracks, very long range

bombers, LSTs, or General Kenney. He figured he didn't

need to know about th em, because he knew that they'd come

along as and when necessity demanded. They always had.

Th ey would again. Anybody who didn't think we could beat

the Japs was just plain dumb.

The Japs didn't think so. In fact, they reveled in a spirit

of invincib ility. Enhanced by ce nturies of victorious tra·

diti on, cu Itured by myths and fairy tales, and bolstered by

years of one·track education, Japanese confidence of victory

was even greater than ou r own.

The Japs had something whi ch we didn ' t have. They had

a scheme. It was a grandiose scheme that befitted tru e Sons

of Heaven. We came to know of it as "The Greater East Asia

Co·prosperity Sphere." The name was illusory because it

The crew of the California abandon the ship as it settles

down in the waters of Pearl Harbor. The Oklahoma has

already capsized and its hottom can be seen in background.

entailed a great deal more than Asia and had nothin g what·

ever to do with co·prosperity.

It had been in the back of the Japanese mind just about as

long as the Japanese had been trying to become a modern

nation-ever sin ce Commodore Perry reawoke them to thefact that there was a wo rld going on.

For two hundred years prior to that time, the Japanese

had been living a proud, feudal, insulated existence

and had liked i t -or at least the ruling Japanese liked

it, which is all that has eve r mattered in Japan. Commodore

Perry did not convince them that they were backward and

ridiculous. On the contrary, he merely convinced them that

if they were going to maintain their separate existence, they

would have to incorporate modern methods and expand the

area of insulation. That, in brief, is the Greater East Asia

Co·prosperity Sphere-a great realm where Japanese ideas

and ideals would be immune from the provoking influences

of the Occident, la rge enough to provide all the necessities

and luxuries of life, and long enough and wide enough andpowerful enough to be impenetrable.

The Japanese scheme failed.

It can be argued that the Japs never had a Chinaman's

chance anyway-that they were a bush league club playing

in the big time, and were just lucky to knock a couple of

balls over the fence in the first inning. But we can be more

specific than that.

Th e Japs fail ed, first of all, because Germany fail ed.

Japan predicated the assumption of victory on a German

victory and planned her grand strategy on that assumption.

History will show that Stalingrad was a catastrophe-for

Japan no less than for Germany.

The Japs failed , secondly, because they could not keep

pace with Allied production . They started the war with

ntlmerical superiority in practically every field of arm y and

navy equipment and vastly increased that superiority in the

opening months of the war by attrition against the Allies.

Th ereafter, the sca les turned quickly against them. When

the U. S. finall y brought strategic bombers to bear on the

Home Islands, so that production and attrition would work

hand in hand , the Japs didn 't have a chance. Th ey were faced

with Allien superiority in planes, ship s, and all the imp ed i·

Continu,ed on next page



4

INTRODUCTION continued

menta of war which rapidly snowballed to stupefying pro

portions.

The Japanese failed , thirdly, because they did not possess

a scientific "know how" to compete qualitatively. Ja p equip

ment rapidly became inferior to ours. At the end of the war

they did not have one single operational weapon which was

superior to ours or which we could not have produced. In

the critical new weapon developments of this war, Japan

was practically at a standstill while the Allies were racingahead. Japanese radar was crude by ou r standards. She had

nothing that even approximated a B-17 or a B-24--let alone

a B-29. And she was constantly perplexed, bewildered, and

confounded by a galaxy of Allied weapons- air-to-ground

rockets, napalm, computing sights, proximity fuses, aerial

mines, bazookas, flame throwers, the atom bomb. It was these

things, and the Japanese inability to produce them, which

the Nip post mortem artists are blaming for their defeat.

The Japanese failed because their high command failed.

Japanese strategy was based on the assumption that the

United States could be surprised and beaten before we could

arm ourselves and fight back effectively. They made the

mistake of believing their own propaganda- that there wasinternal dissension in the United States, that Americans were

peace loving and decadent, and that it would take them years

to switch from luxury production to war output. "Goddam

Americans all go to hell." Enough said.

Japanese strategists and tacticians fought their war

straight out of the rule books. The rule books were never

revised until the Japs learned, through ugly experience, that

they were obsolete, and when the Allies got out editions of

their own, or fought off the cuff, the Japs were dumbfounded

and incapable of effective countermeasures. A case in point

was the Jap belief that "unsinkable aircraft carriers" would

afford impregnable barriers to ou r advance across the Pacific.

When it was proven that su perior carrier air power could

knock out island bases, and land-based planes could keepthem neutralized, the Japs had no alternative defense.

Japanese strategists apparently could not foresee a situa

tion in which they did not have the initiative. Their con

ception of war was built around the word "attack." When

they were put on the defensive, it took them a long time to

learn that there were better stratagems than an heroic

Banzai charge and , when the trend was against them, they

sometimes lost their capacity for straight thinking and

blundered themselves into a mess. Witness the Marianas

incident, when the cream of the naval air force was caught

outside its radius of action , or the Yamato engagement, when

the pride of the Jap fleet, in a futile move toward Okinawa,

was sunk by carrier planes. Or the first weeks on Guadalcanal, when the Japs couldn't utilize an overwhelming air

superiority efficiently enough to wipe out Henderson field.

The Japanese strategists did not understand, until too late,

the potentialities of ai r power. Like the Germans they

thought of air power in terms of an attack weapon to be

used as support for naval forces and ground armies. Be-

cause they themselves had no formula for the use of stra

tegic air power, they overlooked the possibility that it would

he used against them and so were unprepared to counter it.

The JAF was built around a force of short range bombers

and fighters that were flimsily built, armorless, fire traps.

The bombers were incapable of sustaining an offensive that

really packed a wallop. The fighters were increasingly in

effective against Allied bombers that were forever flying

places and doing things that the Japs hadn't anticipated soon

enough. The Japs learned about big time ai r war but they

learned it the rough way-just as guinea pigs learn about

shock treatment from scientists.

The Japanese failed, last of all, because their men and

officers were inferior-not in courage--but in the intelligentuse of courage. Japanese education, Japanese ancestor wor

ship, and the Japanese caste system told off time after time

in uninspired leadership and transfixed initiative. In a pre

dicted situation that could be handled in an orthodox man

ner, Japanese soldiers were always competent and sometimes

resourceful. Under the shadow of frustration, however, the

obsession of personal honor extinguished the spark of

ingenuity; and a deteriorating situation would provoke an

increasingly irrational resistance. The Japanese air force's

attempt to break up the Leyte landing is a case in point. For

days, the Japs tried conventional bombing tactics and were

shot down by the hundreds without doing appreciable dam

age. Failing in this, the only improvisation they could

conjure up was suicide attack. Contrast this desperate

failure with Allied success in the Battle of the Bismarck

sea, when less than 150 miscellaneous Fifth Air Force planes

coordinated tactics and techniques to skip-bomb, machine

gun, and precision drop an entire convoy to the bottom with

in range of a numerically superior Jap air force.

All of these failures add up to one thing. The execution

of Japanese plans was not equal to the grandiose demands

of their strategy. They found out that the exquisite ambitions

of the Sons of Heaven could not overcome the limitations of

the common, mortal Jap.

But sometimes we were lucky_ We must admit that. We

were lucky, those fi rst few months, to be fighting an enemy

who was mentally incapable of exploiting hi& advantage.We were lucky the Japs didn't throw everything at Oahu .

And we were lucky at Port Moresby when General Mac

Arthur played them for suckers with a superb bluff on a

bust hand. After that. the deal shifted, and all the luck in

the cards couldn't help the Japs to escape the show-down.

By the time the American offensive got started at Guadal-

One of Lt . Col. Doolittle's B-25s takes of f from the d



canal on 7 August, 1942, the Japs had gone a long way

toward reaching their goal of strategic isolation. The Allies

were pushed back to India, to Australia, to Hawaii, to Alaska

- t o bases so fa r distant that only an occasional submarine

could scratch feebly at the jugular vein, and only Lt. Col.

Doolittle's monumental gesture of defiance could cause a

momentary tremor of the heart itself.

Although the Japanese empire was vast and her armed

forces formidable, she was vulnerable. Japan had delicate

arteries and a bad heart. The value of her captured landmasses and the armed forces that defended them was in

direct proportion to the ability of her shipping to keep them

supplied. to keep the forces mobile, and to bring back to

Japan the raw materials that make it possible to wage

modern war. Destroy the shipping. and Japan for all prac·

tical purposes would be four islands without an empire

four islands on which were a few dozen made·to-burn cities

in which were jam packed the people and the industry that

together made up the Japanese war machine. Destroy the

shipping and burn the cities, and the whole empire complex

would be like forsaken puppets-lifeless without strings and

a master hand to play them.

The e were the basic conceptions of American strategy

a war of attrition against Japanese shipping that would bewaged on an ocean·wide front coincidentally with a gouging

thrust straight towards the Home Islands-to positions

where land based bombers could sever the arteries and

pound away at the heart.

The future course of the Allied offensive was determined

at Guadalcanal. I t seemed a long way to Tokyo . It was.

It seemed like a pretty small beginning. It was. It seemed

like a lot of men and time and effort going into the acquisi·

tion of a jungle mud hole.

It was worth it. The Japanese reaction to our landing was

proof enough of its strategic value. But the Guadalcanal

operation pa id off in higher terms than real estate. We

prospected a theory on Guadalcanal and brought in a gusher.The theory was that an Allied force, working with an air·

field and some planes (a muddy jungle slash and obsolete

fighters would do) could beat off the Japs and eventually

push them back to decisive defeat. We did just that. Armed

Hornet to 110mb Japanese cities 01 1 18 April 1942.

" .:"1':

with confidence and the promise of increased capital in the

form of more and better planes, ships, and equipment, and

more men, the prospects of developing the whole field into

a bonanza looked excellent. We could go ahead.

The technique of triphibious warfare was evolved and be·

came so standardized in its pattern that it was almost a

ritual. Submarines were usually the advance agents, snoop·

ing, harassing, diverting, and raising hell with enemy supply.

Long range reconnaissance bombers might be the next on the

scene or it might be a carrier task force that would come

quickly, concentrate a Sunday punch on the enemy ai r forceand shipping, and retire before the Japs could bring tactical

superiority to bear. There would follow a few weeks. or

perhaps months, when land based planes would take over

the job of interdicting the base, neutralizing the ai r facilities,

and knocking out the gun positions and trong points. In due

time, the landing force would arrive, escorted by a suitable

task force which would do as much as artillery preparation

and aerial bombardment could do to smooth the way; and

then the ground forces would establi h a beachhead and

push inland; and then the combat engineers, or the Seabees,

or the construction battalions, or the air engineers, or per·

haps all of them, would take over, with bulldozers and

carbines; and then an airfield would be ready and planes

would start to come in, artillery spotters first, then the

fighters and night fighters , and then the bombers; and then

the place would be declared secure, and the Japs would write

off one asset and we would start to process another.

For a long time it was muddy going in low gear but in

1944 the Allied offensive started to roll. By that time we had

definite superiority, quantitative and qualitative. in ships,

planes, equipment, and technique. General MacArthur

hedge.hopped up the islands towards the Philippines.

Kwajalein and then Eniwetok fell in short snappy cam·

paigns. And Navy task forces, no longer tied down to direct

support operations, flexed their muscles and paraded forth

to cuff the enemy in his vaunted strongholds and to slap his

face with the established fact that from henceforth theU. S. would make a hobby of the Pearl Harbor game.

June 15, 1944 was the day that the American offensive

reached level ground and switched to high gear. That was

the day that China·based B·29s cast their shadows on Yawata

and that wa the day that forces stormed ashore on Saipan.

It was the day that the Japanese high command had to admit,

to themselves at least, that their beautiful dream of insula·

tion had turned into an horrendous nightmare.

Having taken the Marianas, we were finally in a position,

with the B·29, to wage a strategic war of attrition against

the Japanese empire. From here on in , the increase of Allied

strength would go hand in hand with the deterioration of the

Japanese capacity to fight back. We were ready to launch

a vicious spira I of destruction from which there cou Id notpossibly be any escape. I f the Japanese backed up farther,

we would advance more quickly. I f they chose to stand and

fi ght, we would destroy them and have so much less to cope

with later on. It was as simple as that. It was as simple as

that because the Allies had ama ed a power that was titanic.

The Japanese could not stand up to it and there was no place

they could go to get away from it. They had no immovable

object to place against the irresistible force. Eventuanv

they had just one final choice-give up or be de troyed. .

5



Part

2THE LONG TREKAcro ss the Pa cific I t W as H o p ~ Skip and Jump

The road to Tokyo started where it had to; started from

where we picked ourselves up after being kicked out of the

Philippines , out of the East Indies, out of al l the places

within reach of Japan.

It was a long trek, made over a bridge whose spans werepushed forward one by one and anchored to bases won by

the combined strength of land, sea and air. This is the

story of how we got to our starting point, and how the Army

Air Forces helped to build and use the bridge.

On the first day of war we lost two-thirds of our aircraft

in the Pacific. Hawaii was erased as a source of immediate

reinforcements for the Philippines . And in the Philippines

where enemy attacks continued, our planes were \\ hittled

down rapidly. The kicking out phase was under way, with

the 19th Bombardment Group taking its 14 B-17s to Aus

tralia and then to Java for a brief but futile stand. The 24th

Pursuit Group continued to give such aid as it could to the

troops as they gradually gave ground in the Philippines, but

its extinction was in sight before the end of 1941.

The ai r effort to hold the Netherlands East Indies radiated

from a main ai r base at Ma lan g, Java. Japan's 10-to-1

numerical air superiority and the swift onrush of its invad

ing troops soon forced abandonment of all hope. In late

February 1942 evacuation was ordered and by early March

the planes of the Fifth Air Force_ around which Southwest

Pacific ai r strength was to be built, were in Australia.

Fearful anxiety gripped Australia. The Japanese sweep

ing in through the East Indies, had brought Port Darwin

and other western cities under a ir attack. While battering

the Fifth Air Force, they launched another prong of their

offensive with ai r attacks on northern New Guinea, the

Admiralty islands, New Ireland, New Britain and theSolomons. Austra lia was being sealed off from the north.

Late January landings at Kavieng, Rabaul and Bougainville

made it clear that Australia's supply line from the United

States was threatened. The same landings would protect the

enemy's left flank and serve as springboards for invasion of

the island continent.

So long, Sally. Bursting parabombs beat an accompani

ment to this refrain from Guadalcanal to Borneo, Tarawa to

Tokyo. This Sally was shattered by 5th AF on Boeroe, N.E.L

The Fifth Air Force had arrived in Australia from Java

with virtually no fighters and few bombers. It was a

negligible factor until replacements could arrive. Australia

itself was similarly weak. Outpost garrisons in its island

possessions to the north were over-run and it had only 43operational combat planes. The gravity of the situation

was apparent and reconnaissance planes' reports of massed

enemy shipping at Rabaul increased the tension. Just to

the north of Australia, in southern New Guinea, was Port

Moresby. Its loss to the enemy would eliminate Townsville

and other northeastern Australian cities as plane bases,

would shove our planes back from within reaching distance

of Rabaul. When in early March a Jap convoy sent troops

ashore at Lae and Salamaua in northern New Guinea, the

noose was beginning to settle. Planes from two U. S. car

riers opposed the Lae-Salamaua landing, sinking 15 vessels

after spanning the mountains from the gu lf of Papua, but

the landing went on.

Coral Sea and Midway

The victory-flushed enemy, annoyed but not seriously

worried by the Doolittle Tokyo raid of 18 April, then

pushed a convoy into the Coral sea, aiming it at Port

Moresby. Two carriers, seven cruisers, 17 destroyers, 16

unidentified warships, 21 transports and two submarines

were spotted by a reconnaissance plane on 4 May. U. S.

fleet units, concentrated in Australian waters, cha llenged it.

Land-based planes struck at enemy airfields at Lae and

Rabaul to neutralize them, while carrier planes attacked the

convoy. It was an ai r engagement. Neither fleet's surface

units got within gun range of th e other. By 9 May the

battle was over, the convoy routed by the carriers. The Japshad suffered their first major defeat of the war and Port

Moresby had a new lease on life.

Then came the events which slowed the tempo of Jap

expansion and stab ilized the outer perimeter of the enemy's

conquests in the Pacific. On 3 June, Ja p warships were

sighted west of Midway. B-17s of the Seventh Air Force

reached out to them fo r initial attacks while our carriers

under forced draft got within fighter range. As in the

Battle of the Coral Sea there was no contact between surface

forces. and also as in the earlier engagement, the Japs

Continued on next page



LONa TREK continued

suffered a crushing defeat. Four carriers, two cruisers, three

destroyers and a transport were sunk, others were damaged

and 275 of the enemy's planes hit the water. We lost a

carrier, a destroyer, 150 carrier planes, two B-17s and two

B-26s_ Ou r Navy's carrier arm had established it superior

ity over the Jap's; had depleted the enemy's carrier forces

so sharply that never again could Japan strike as swiftly, in

as great strength, over as vast an area as she had before_While the Midway force was steaming toward di aster,

another group of vessels was playing hide and seek in the

Aleutian fog. It lost a lone plane over our then secret hase

at Umnak on 3 June and launched its attack on Dutch

Harbor the next day. It was met by fighters from Cold Bay

and Umnak, and our bombers sought the carrier force . A

few contacts were reported, and a carrier was damaged,

but the weather was so bad that vessels could be held in

sight fo r only a few minutes at a time. The Japanese with

drew under cover of the fog and a week later reconnaissance

showed them in possession of Kiska and Attu.

The Early Days in New Guinea

The Midway reverse slowed the enemy, broke the previ

ously unrelieved gloom in which the Allies moved, but did

not eliminate the tension in Australia or the threat to Port

Moresby. Moresby was under unremitting ai r attack; was

too hot for heavy bombers which moved to it from Towns

ville, refueled , hit Rabau I, and scampered back to Australia.

But Moresby was an essential in the MacArthur promise to

return to the Philippines. General George C. Kenney, who

took command of the Fifth Air Force, gave assurance that

with the few planes he had, plus expected reinforcements, he

could get and hold air superiority. And so, despite con

tinuing ai r attacks and the ever-present possibility of assault

from the sea, Moresby was developed through the spring

and summer of 1942, with seven landing strips taking shape.It was the base we had to have to trade blows with the

enemy; the base from which we could reach Rabau I.

Moresby could be held only if Kenney's planes could

meet the Jap air attacks and beat them down, exacting a

heavy toll while husbanding their own numbers. They had

to do it with fa r too few planes which had to fly too many

hours in every week. They had to do it with planes which

could not match the Zero in maneuverability, in speed of

climb or speed in level flight. But they had some tools the

Japs lacked. They had the B-17, a weapon which could

outreach anything the enemy had , striking from bases

relatively immune to attack. They had fighter planes which

were built for defense as well as offense and would not

become flaming torches at the flick of the enemy's trigger.They had men, too, with ingenuity in maintenance, Hying

and tactics. These were the things which kept the Fifth Air

Force in Moresby through the spring and summer of 1942.

Then in late July the Japs landed at Buna, Gona and

Sanananda on the northeast coast of New Guinea, just over

the Owen Stanley mountains from Moresby. They started

to push up the Kokoda trail while Australians fought a

delaying action in retreat. Kokoda fell, the Japs pressed on

through the mountain pass-and then Port Moresby began

to payoff. Troops staged there moved out to meet the enemy

in the mountain jungles. The Fifth 's planes got their first

taste of co-operation with ground troops under conditions of

tremendous difficulty. As they strafed and bombed Japs

along the trail and hit at supply dumps, they rarely saw

thei r targets, concealed in the jungles. Vague reference

points in a confusing welter of trees and valleys and ridges

were all they had. But they struck at them and at airfields

and at coastal shipping. They flew as long as the planes

would hold together, then tied them up with stray bits of

wire and flew some more. They improvised: old P-4-00 s(modified P-39s ) were turned into dive bombers with a

500-pound bomb slung underneath. And then as the Aus

tralians stopped giving ground and halted the Japs just

30 miles from Port Moresby, the Fifth Air Force played its

biggest role in the campaign, sparking the start of Mac

Arthur's since-famed hop, skip and jump warfare.

With Gona-Buna in enemy hands, Port Mo .resby would

never be secure, Rabaul could not be neutralized and an

advance out of the Southwest Pacific could not get started.

The Papuan campaign was initiated with the ground push

back across the Kokoda trail and an airborne leap of 15,000

men across the mountains to near Buna. The Troop Carrier

Command ferried engineers with equipment to hack outairstrips, then moved in the troops and their equipment. The

lack of aircraft was as acute for transport a it was for

combat, and bombers were pressed into service and loaded

with artillery. The ground forces were dependent on air

supply fo r food , ammunition and equipment. The ai r sup

ply route was maintained with its terminus almost in sight

of the Japs. Casualties were evacuated on the return flights.

Buna was overrun on 2 January 1943, and the threat to

Port Moresby was ended. The first span was in place.

Meanwhile in the late summer of 1942 the Solomons cam

paign was started. Its immediate objective also was the

security of Australia. The Jap invasion of the Solomons had

pressed the sharp cutting edge of the expansion knife close

to the Australian supply artery. The entire push back tothe Philippines depended on building Australia into a tre

mendous storehouse of men and materiel , and it was en

dangered to a critical degree when Guadalcanal was oc

cupied by the Japanese. Guadalcanal had to be retaken.

Solomons Campaign

AAF planes, later to be formed into the Thirteenth Air

Force, launched attacks from Espiritu Santo on Jap posi

tions on Guadalcanal and Tulagi while Fifth Air Force

planes struck at Rabaul. Navy and marine fliers ranged

up and down the Solomons, striking at shipping and at air

fields, prepariNg for the day of invasion. On 7 August 1942

the marines went ashore on Guadalcanal. For three criticalmonths they battled the Japs on little better than even terms.

Allied strength was barely adequate and the enemy kept

pouring reinforcements down from Rabaul. But incessant

naval and aerial patrol and attacks on shipping, gradually

cut into the Japs' ability to bolster their failing troops and

turned the tide of battle. By late October we had aerial

superiority and by mid-November, heavy bombers were

flying from Guadalcanal's Henderson field. The battle was

won and mopping up completed in February, 1943. Guadal

canal was the first step toward Rabaul and it was followed

by invasion of the New Georgia islands in the Central

Solomons at the end of June and by invasion of Bougainville



1 November 1943. These steps put Rabaul within easy

fighter range of the Thirteenth Air Force. Its harbor and

airfields could be kept under daily attack. But Bougainvill e

was not taken easi ly. Ground fighting was bitter and costly.

The enemy struck with his full ai r power again and again,

but as in ew Guinea, the U. S. Aiers were his masters. They

had met overwhelmin g numbers and by out-Aying and out

thinking the enemy, had racked up ratios of 10, 20 and even

30 to 1 destroyed. By late 1943 pyramiding enemy losses

coup led with mounting U. S. production made it clear thatdestruction of the Jap Air Force was only a matter of time.

While Guadalcanal and Port Moresby were being made

secure and the first advances made beyond them in the South

west Pacific, other events had been giving notice of growing

allied strength. In the Aleutians, Kiska was by-passed and a

landing made on Attu in May, 1943. This former American

island had been bombed occasionally from Adak and

Amchitka, but persistent low-hanging clouds made it less

profitable for attack than Kiska. The Attu landing, then, was

a surprise maneuver, going past the island most heavily

attacked and most heavily defended. Attu fell on 2 June and

American forces stood between Kiska and its supply base in

the Northern Kuriles. On 15 Augu t, Canadian and American

troops stormed ashore on Kiska and learned that the by

passing technique was effective. There were no Japs on the

island. They had pulled out in late July under cover of a

weather front so thick that one of the evacuating destroyers

saw Little Kiska island dead ahead, thought it was an

American warship, and opened fire. Not only had American

soi l been freed of the invader by the Aleutian campaign;

we had moved into position for the Eleventh Air Force to

begin its strikes against the Kurile islands. These attacks,

which increased steadi ly as radio navigation aids and radar

les ened the need for good weather, forced the Japs to con

sider the po sibi lity of an attack from the north, forced them

to tie up more men and planes and ships than they could

afford when their southern Aank was crumblin g.In the Central Pacific, too, things were beginning to jell.

Wake island had been hit occasionally by the Seventh Air

Force in Aights staging from Midway, but since the Seventh

was sending most of its planes into the Solomons action

under the Thirteenth Air Force, it had little offensive power.

In April, 1943, however, phosphate-rich Nauru and Tarawa

in the Gilberts were blasted. These island continued to be

occasional targets and in September Army and Navy planes

joined to give Tarawa a thorough pasting. The exp losive

force with which the United States rocketed across the

Pacific in 1944 was beginning to gather.

Campaigns for New Guinea and the MarshallsNew Guinea's re-conquest, to spring from Australia by

way of Buna and Gona, required two things above all:

denial of reinforcements to the Japs, and protection of

Allied troops from aerial attack. The Fifth Air Force ac

cepted major responsibility fo r both. The first obligation

was spectacularly fulfilled in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.

Kenney's ubiquitous bombers had been roaming the coast

lines ann ranging out to sea with increasing frequency as

the Fifth began to gather strength. On the first of March,

eontinued on page 17

Oscar makes its death turn under two Eleventh AF Mitchells

over Paramushiru in northern Kuriles. Landing gear of Jap

fighter is seen lowering after .50 calibers ripped plane.

Takeoff in snow, landing in fog. Aleutian Liberators above

taxi out, wait out squall , take off before next. All bases

fogged, B-24 below finds tiny isle at night, lands safely.



Airfield on Rabaul is under parabomb attack. Fight to neutralize Rabaul went

on when Allied ai r power was trickling to the Pacific and JAF was in full flood.

Hollandia str ip was a place where the Japanese Air Force met one of its major

reverses in New Guinea. B-25s are here processing the. strip into a graveyard.

On Los Negros, bomb caroms over a Jap fighter that probably never flew

again anyway. Condition of field indicates Japs weren't trying hard to keep it up.

Filth AF 8-245 aided f,y heavy rai

BASES: THEIR DEATHJapanese ai r bases never took any

blue ribbons for superior quality.

They were (a nd the ones still in exis t-

ence are) rumdum affairs which had

all the faults and none of the beauties

of primitive handicraft. An American

heavy bomber trying to come down onone of them might very possibly have

gone through the surface before it ran

out of runway.

Nevertheless, the ai r bases were ade

quate for Japanese purposes and

whether or not we eventually planned

to use .them-their facilities, planes

and runways were priority targets. To

neutralize them-so that they could be

taken handily or by-passed withou

fear of future flank attack-was the

first and most important preliminary



washed up this airfield on Palawan.

AND RESURRECTIONin every step on the road to Tokyo.

Th e job wa done well. From Rabaul

to Formosa, th e Pacific is marked with

overgrown graveyards of th e Japane e

Air Force. And scattered a long with

th em, from Guadalcana l to Okinawa,

the ocean is dotted with huge glittering

bases built on th e antique ruins of

Japanese outposts.The stru ggle for the ocean ai r bases

had a symphonious theme to which

th ere were end less variations. Like a

titani c quest for gold , they were pio

neered, claimed, exp loited, and left

behind.

Scenes from the death and resurr ec-

tion of some of the bases we wrecked,

th en rebuilt, and some we left to die_

a re on th ese and followin g pages.

1lark field in pre-war day s was a pretty place with compact and conspicuous

facilities. Japs got it virtually undamaged, turned it into a major ai r base.

2The same fi e ld under American ai r attack in July 1945 is deluged with pho -phorous parabombs. Fa cilities are wrecked and only sca ttered planes remain.

3Clark field is finished for the Japs. Compare this picture with one at top and

note th a t Japs made no additions or changes in their three years of ownership.

,



Maloelap in the Marshalls was as fine an ai r base as the

Japs could build in 20-odd years of undisputed tenancy_

The same place gets the by-pass treatment. Base is bombed

often enough to keep it unserviceable for enemy aircraft.

Strip on Noemfoor is invested by paratroopers the da y after it had been deluged with 230 tons of bombs.



Marines have toehold on Saipan and attack unfolds in •

classic triph ibious pattern. Immediate business is to make

hold stick. Once established, Marines will drive straight for

Aslito airfield. then concentrate on wiping out Jap force.

Aslito, two pictures below, has been taken and renamed

Isely. Jap planes are collected in front of ruined hangars

and two days later field is ready for TBFs and P·47s. For

picture of Isely several months later turn to page 17 •

' .. _......



The Japs hit back at Port Moresby and fuel storage goes

up. Air strikes at rear bases provided occasional setbacks.

Planes burn after a few Japs ge t through to bomb Funafuti

JAF was confined more and more to a defensive effort

Weather and terrain delayed the progress of airfield contruction on Leyte far more than enemy action



Tokyo Proving ground for AAF's technique of medium·

altitude night incendiary bombing, the Jap capital suffered a

Osaka 20th AF ignited conflagrations that consumed 35.1

per cent (17.64 sq. mi.) of Japan's second industrial city.

loss of 56.34 square miles (39.9 % ). Industrial Kawasaki at

far left had 35.2 per cent devoured by the B·29 fireworks.

Nagoya Fire bombs ripped the war industries of this big

arsenal to bits. Gutted was 40 per cent of the city proper.



Henderson field on Guadalcanal in August 1944 is built on the mud-hole that marines took two years before.

Tacloban on Leyle in June 1945 was already a staging

base and storage depot hundreds of miles from front lines.

Eniwetok in April 1944 was base for operations against

the Carolines, la ter became a naval ai r replacement depot.



Kwajalein was a mess when air and naval bombardment .

had processed it for invasion. Air power first neutralized

Jap islands to the east which were then by-passed in a tac

tical surprise that literally caught the enemy off base.

Two months later, the reincarnation of Kwajalein looke

like this and planes from here haunted the Japs all the wa

to Truk and Saipan. When we moved on to the Mariana

Kwajalein became just another way stop on the long trek •



a reconnai ssance B-24 potted a large convoy with

destroyer escort steaming west off the northern coast of New

Britain. It carried supplies and more than 12 ,000 men fo r

reinforcement of Lae. When word of this juicy plum was

Aashed hack to base. a flio-ht of B·17s was dispatched. The

convoy. howeve r. wa hidden in a front and contact was not

made. At dawn the next da y. the Fifth mustered all its

planes. sending A-20s to immobilize th e airfield at Lae.

B·24:-: and B·17 · with P-38 e cort to th e attack. Th e convoy

was sighted and bombed from medium altitude. Four ship"

were "link. Later in the da y a fli ght of B·17s attacked

aga in as th e . hips maneuvered under a cover of squalls.

That night the weather changed and by morning the con·

voy was entering Huon gulf under clear skies. That was the

jackpot day.

Tests by the Proving Ground Command at Eglin field ,

Fla . had establi hed the feasibility of masthead bombing

a low· leve l broadside attack with the bomb plunking

sq ua rely into the side of the vessel. Synchronized high.level

attack an d accompanying fighters were recommended. Quick

10 seize on new ideas, the Fifth's B-17s successfully used

low· level attacks on ships in Rabaul harbor at night. Its

B-25s and A-20s practiced the technique on an old hulk at

I'orl Moresby between combat miss ion . The R·25s gained

added :-:ecllrity and lethal powe r by a modification whichI!ave lhem eight forward·firin g .50 ca liber , a modification

marie i ) th e th ea te r.

Thus on 3 March the un lI spec tin g Ja p convoy was

keepin g a da te with e ternity. As it entered Huon gLi If .Beaufighter;; went in firs t. taking the screening destroyers a;;

Iheir !'trafing ta rgets. With AA fire lessened and scattered.

Ih e heav ies picked their targets from medium altitude and

mad e repeated bomb runs. The B-25s and A-20s then sprang

Ihe big su rprise , raking the decks as they approached , and

dropping their bombs just before they pulled up and over

the masts. All the while, P-38s were overhead engaging the

convoy 's fighter cover. The convoy was dead as darkness

fell. Th e next day attacks on the Lae airfield continued as

planes earched fo r survivors. Th e final mop·up was on 5

March when Beaufighters and B-25 put an end to rafts and

li feboats. Land·based airIJower had demonstrated that when

prolJerl y employed. it could stop an invade r befort' porl

could be reached. From that time on. th e Japs wt're fo rced

to spirit their troolJs along the coast of ew Guinea al

night in camouflaged barges which hugged the shore and

darted for cover at the approach of dawn. Th e commitment

of the Fifth to prevent reinforcement of New Guinea had

been met.

Th e second of its tasks, protecting troop from ai r attack,

invo lved destruction of the Jap air force in such numbers

that eventually replacement would be foolhardy. That

commitment was met too. It was met by better flying in

aerial combat by surpri se attacks on airfields which de·

stroyed the grounded planes, and by construction of airfields

in forward areas.

Th e next jump of MacArthur's forces from Buna was to

Lae. Not only was it in the right di rection for the movetowa rd the Philippines. but its possession would be a power·

ful factor in the neutralization of Rabau I. In aid of the Lae

offensive, aviation engineers mad e a long overland trek to

-1-0 mile" southwe"t of the comin g battlefield and cleared a

"ite for Marilinan field . A" soo n as transports could land.

C-475 moved in an airhorne enginee r battalion with all its

Continued on page 23

This is Isely Number One on Saipan, two weeks before the first Marianas·lwsed 8·29 takes of f to IJomb Japan.

. ,.a.\ - ... .. : ~ , 1 ; " . . . . ..(. ... ~ " I f I I t ' . " . ~ . " .

. ,a "" " '". ~ . , .: ...• i - ~ , : ,'". .

.- '-,.



18

Risinf! smoke on Corref!idor shows that it is I)eing processed for invasion hy Fifth Air Force bombers. Marked o

THE RETURN TO THE ROCKCorregidor is to Manila bay what a fuse is to a bomb.

If the fuse doesn't work, the bomb is a dud.

The Japs hoped to turn Manila bay into a dud for the

Americans by keeping Corregidor. At best they thought

they could keep it indefinitely. At worst, they were con·

fident of inflicting fearsome casualties on the American

force that would come to take it. Three years before, after

violent artillery shelling had pulverized its antiquated forti·

fications, the Japs had assaulted the rock and had been

handed 8,000 casualties by Gen. Wainwright's troops in

the first 15 hours. Now, in their hands, it was a death

trap-the kind of hell·hole where fanatical Japs love to

make a suicide stand-a massive tunneled rock with hun·

dreds of caves and hiding places that would give them a

wall for their backs and a shelter for their heads-the kind

of place where they couldn't be blasted out, where the

enemy would have to come and get them across the water and

up the cliffs.

It was a fine gruesome prospect, only the Americans

didn't want any of it. Instead of coming across the water

and working up, they started at the top and went down,

and the Japs found that their guns pointed in every direction

except up, and that their tunnels and caves faced the wrong

way, and that shelters over their heads protected them from

bombs, yes, bu t they also hid the Americans, which was very

bad. In fact everything was very bad and cou Idn't have been

much worse as fa r as the Jap were concerned. They put

up effective resistance fo r only two weeks and al l 6,OOO·plus

of them were killed, except the 24 who were captured. Two

hundred and ten American oldiers lost their lives.

This fantastic operation was the end product of 30 months'

development in the ar t of triphibious warfare. All the tools

and specialists of air, ground and naval forces were pooled

together to turn out a perfect job.

The Corregidor return drama developed along the classic

Allied pattern. With enemy ai r and naval strength thor·

oughly knocked out by Navy carrier forces and the Fifth Air

Force, and with MacArthur racing toward Manila, Cor·

regidor, as a battlefield, was virtually isolated by 23 Janu·

ary, the day Fifth Air Force bombers began neutralizing

it and the neighboring mutually supporting fortresses of

Carabao, Caballo and Fort Drum. On 13 February, three

days before D·Day, the Navy pitched in with shelling by




photograph are th e two paratroop drop areas and the landing beach. Mountains o f Bataan loom in background.

B-24s give th e rock a good turnin g over on invasion morn·

ing and round up 25 da ys of heavy ai r strikes on thi s ta rge t.

A-20s go after targets of opportunity whil e invasion is

und er way, later worked " on call " from ground troops.

19



Parahombs dropped by A-20s blow up gun positions_ help

keep Ja ps under cover just before arrival of troop planes_

Men and supplies crash down on Godforsaken To pside_ Of

2_065 men jumpin g_ 222 were listed as casualties_ •

Continu,ed from page 18

cruisers and destroyer. With the enemy paralyzed and

dazed. minesweepers cleared the waters around Corregidor.

After a D-Day dawn bombing by heavies_followed by A-20s_

V Troop Carrier Command landed paratroops on top of the

smoking rock. They found only sca ttered opposition_ and et

up positions to cover amphi biolls forces arriving exactl y two

hours la ter . Shortl y thereafter reinforcem en ts could get in

without serious opposition and from then on it was ju st a

question of time_ As the fina I CII rtain rang down_ th ere w a ~an earth-quaking ex plo sion at Monkey Point as a g roup of

Japs blew themselves up ill a typica l ges tu re of defiant

fru stration.

Th e picture on the precedin a pages indica tes why it w a ~decided to invade Corregidor from the air. Obviously. th e

only landing beach is in the vicinity of South Do ck and

obviously any troops put ashore there would hav e a bottle

necked, murderous fight to reach To pside . An ai r landing

was perilous and problematical but it was the only alterna

tive to slaughter. Continued on page 2:



Th e plan works. Paratroo ps a re in control of To pside.

The Ii rst wave of landin g craft has unloaded at South Dock

and a ll except one boat are on th e way out as second wave

comes 111 . Smoke on the beach is probably from land min es.

21



LONG TREK continued

Text continued from page 20

The fea ibility of the paratroop

landing on Topside was predicated

on two assumptions. The first was

that it would catch the Japs Aat

footed-below ground and waiting

patiently for the amphibious assau l t.

The second was that a pre-invasion

air-naval bombardment, carried rightup to the first paradrop , would drive

any Topside Japs to cover long

enough fo r the troops to hit the

ground and consolidate their position .

Both assumptions were correct. The

first two lifts of the 503rd Parachute

Regimental Combat Team found so

little opposition that the third lift

went to the rock by boat to avoid

drop ca ualties.

The amphibiou s landing at South

Dock, covered by air bombardment

and Aeet units firing into Jap posi

tions at point blank range, was carried out by units of the 3rd Battalion,

34th Infantry.

Thereafter, the two forces on

shore, one on Topside and one at

South Dock, concentrated on joining

up, while ai r and naval units operated

"o n call" to blow up strongpoints.

Once this rendezvous had been ac

complished and supply lines had

been secured, the battle for Cor

regidor ettled down to the ugly

nauseating business of wiping out the

cornered Japs. .Mortars, Aame throw

ers and 75-mm guns kept them holed

up, and demolition crews sealed them

underground . Even then, they were

dangerous. Our worst casualties of

the campaign came from the suicide

explosions of entombed Japs .

Holed-up Japs are blasted out at point-blank range. Portable heavy weapons cu

down American casualties by making it unnecessary to charge places like this

Men of the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team come down from Top

side. First contact with South Dock force ha s been made and the crisis i over

nearly bla t resistant as any concrete fort can be.

Not unti l bombs tore the guns apart was it si

lenced. Then oil wa s pumped through the portholes

and set afire while the Japs inside were still dazed.



Continued from page 17

equipment plus anti·aircraft guns. This field was expanded

and soon became the major base from which Wewak was pu t

under attack. Four Jap airfields were in the Wewak area

and all of them nested scores of planes. The big show at

Wewak preliminary to the intensive phase of the Lae cam·

paign opened on 17 August 1943. At dawn the heavy

bombers unleashed frag clusters, demolition and incendiary

bombs. They were followed by B·25s and P·38s which

scampered across the airfields disgorging parafrags, their

machine guns chattering.The performance

was repeated thenext day. Then came a day of rest, followed by two more

days of the same attack pattern. The result was 228 enemy

planes destroyed on the ground and 81 shot out of the ai r

against our loss of 10 planes. Wewak was out of business as

a major base.

A few days later a landing east of Lae was effected, fol·

lowed by the first extensive use of paratroops in the Pacific.

To put a sizable force behind the Jap lines at Lae, it was

decided to capture the Markham valley site of Nadzab.

Detailed preparation was made and the jump was a model

of excellence. While Gen. MacArthur and Gen. Kenney

cruised about overhead. B·25s put the Nips under cover with

a strafing and parafrag attack. They were followed by A·20s

laying a smoke screen, behind which 96 C·47s shucked out1,700 American paratroopers. Nadzab was ours and a week

and a half later Lae fell. As infantrymen crossed the air·

field , they found it a junkyard of shattered planes, souvenirs

of the Fifth's visits. The entire Huon gulf area was cleared

out a few days later with capture of Finschafen. It reo

duced the importance of Rabaul and established a protected

flank for future leaps to the west along the New Guinea

coast.

In the late fall of 1943, this was the picture throughout

the Pacific: in the north, the Japs had been driven out of

the Aleutians, back to the Kuriles; in the Central Pacific, the

Jap.held islands were taking occasional attacks; in the

Southwest Pacific, the key base of Rabaul, 0ne holding the

dual threats of slashing the supply route to Australia as wellas invading it, was itself threatened with isolation.

Rabaul still had ai r strength but it was maintained at ter·

rific cost as our planes blasted it with rising tempo. Its

harbor began to lose importance as the points to which

it shipped men and supplies began to fall into Allied hands.

The final blows which slapped such face as the Japs still had

at Rabaul were those which gave it the indignity of the

by·passed .

Tarawa and Makin were invaded on 20 November 1943.

The marines went ashore after seven days of intensive aer ial

softening. The Marshall islands to the north were im·

mobilized by concurrent attacks. The invasion spelled the

end of reinforcements in strength for Rabaul, but more thanthat, it set the fi r t pier for ou r bridge across the Central

Pacific.

The pattern of Pacific advance was one of taking the bases

we needed and by· passing the others. Those by·passed were

not forgotten, however. They were hi t again and again and

again. And after they had lost al l possibility of usefulness

to the enemy, they were made practice targets for new crews;

targets which still could pu t up some AA fire to season the

crews at minimum risk. To the end of the war, Rabaul

was getting a daily pounding although as a factor in imped.

ing the push to Tokyo it had faded completely after the

Tarawa landing doomed its reinforcements and subsequent

landings at Arawe and Cape Gloucester put it under land

threat from the west.

Truk now became the important base, with Palau like·

wise looming larger in the Japanese scheme of reinforce·

ment of forward areas. But those forward areas were soon to

be lost. American task forces ranged through the eastern

perimeter islands striking Mili, Jaluit, Kwajalein, Wotje and

Nauru, churning their runways into coral rubble, burningtheir supplies. The same islands and others nearby were hi t

in daily sorties by B·24s. By mid·December, fighters and

bombers were taking off from newly won Makin to strike

the Marshalls. Kwajalein was invaded in a brilliant mao

neuver which caught the Japs by surprise as we went through

to the northern part of the Marshalls, skipping the more

obvious southern invasion points. Throughout February,

airfields in the Marshalls were bombed into uselessness, and

our planes ranged westward to immobilize the staging areas.

Forty.two B·24s plastered Ponape in the Carolines on 14

February, and two days later a naval task force gave the

great naval and ai r center of Truk a thorough shellacking,

shooting down 127 aircraft and destroying 74 on the ground

while losing only 17 of its own planes. It was an actiontimed to keep the Japs off balance while we invaded

Eniwetok, where troops went ashore on 17 February. All of

the Marshalls and Gilberts were under constant fighter and

bomber attack from that time, and as we gradually moved in

and captured the key islands, ai r pressure by the enemy was

kept at low level by destruction of planes and airfields both

in those islands and in the Carolines to the west. Four major

Jap islands were left to bake in the Pacific sun under an

umbrella of smoke raised by almost daily neutralizing at·

tacks. Mili, Jaluit, Maloelap and Wotje remained to the

end as practice targets, symbols of the fate of the by· passed.

While the Gilberts and Marshalls were being taken in

hand by the Navy, the ground forces and the Seventh Air

Force, the Thirteenth Ai r Force made a jump to the Ad·

miralty islands north of our Huon gulf holdings on New

Guinea. That made it a partner of the Seventh in blows on

the Carolines, with special attention being given to Truk.

These blows along the Central Pacific route to Japan were

falling while Gen. MacArthur moved his forces westward

along the north New Guinea coast. Infantrymen slugged

their way through inland valleys parallel to the coast, and as

they pressed the Japs back, amphibious operations pu t other

troops behind the Japs to effect a pincers. The Fifth Air

Force continued its systematic destruction of the Japanese

ai r force in New Guinea while blasting supp lies, defensive

installations and troops. In the last week of February 1944,

900 sorties were flown and 1,000 tons of bombs dropped onthe Wewak, Madang, Alexishafen and Hansa bay areas,

leading to the 5 March lanaing west of Saidor behind the

Jap lines. Hollandia was the major enemy base after Wewak

was shattered, with the Schouten islands and the Halmaheras

backing it up as rear bases. But Hollandia was soon to

share the fate of what in 1944 was the sorry lot of all Jap

forward bases. On 30 March, B·24s, P·38s and P·47s hit it.

The next day B·24s and P·38s gave it a final polish . The box

score: Japan, 219 planes destroyed or damaged; the U. S.,

one P·38 lost. Three days later a force of 303 B·24s, B·25s,


23



Balikpapan, once the ] 3th A F 's toughes t Borneo targe t •

\Va pretty much a "milk run" by 1 Jul y when Au ssies landed .

Above. 5th AF Libs assist in th e prt .-inva ,; ion bomhardmcnt.

Inspection of 8alikpapan proved that FEAF's lon g neutral

ization campaign was successful. Below, Dutch oil engineers

assess damage at a bomb-bla ted cra ckin g installation . . .



Hoarded barge fuel, hidden along Borneo jungle water

way near Bandjermasin, is located by 13th AF "snooper."

Bomb hits, strafing, scattered and fired hundreds of drums.


A-20s and P-38s pulverized the area and shot 26 planes out

of the sky. Hollandia was finished as an enemy bastion and

on 22 April a long jump was made to it by invasion forces.

The same day a precautionary firewall was built between it

and the by-passed areas by a landing at Aitape. Then in

turn came Wakde island on 17 May, Biak island on 27 May,Noemfoor on 2 July and Cape Sansapor on 30 Jul y.

Western New Guinea was under control. The route now lay

north through the Halmaheras to the Philippines .

Thrust to the Marianas

With MacArthur poised on the western end of New Guinea

at the close of July, the Central Pacific forces under Ad

miral Nimitz's command had swept into the Marianas and

likewise were set to move north or west. They reached the

Marianas in one tremendous thrust from the Marshalls, past

the Carolines, into Saipan on 15 Jun e. This was accom

plished on the familiar pattern of neutralization of all sur

rounding bases. Daily strikes were made on Truk, Ponape,Woleai, and Yap. The Peleliu airfield in the Palaus was the

target of five attacks in three days. While the Seventh and

Thirteenth Air Forces were neutralizing the Carolines, car

rier planes attacked Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and Guam in the

immediate invasion area. The fleet started shelling Sai pan

and Tinian two days before the landing. On D-Day, carrier

planes made sustained attacks on the enemy bases on Iwo,

Haha and Chichi islands. These attacks on bases from which

the invasion could be hampered were accompanied by a

oiversion in the north . The navy shelled Matsllwa island

Black thunderhead of oil smoke rises over storage tanks

at Boela, Ceram. A-20's silhouette shows against towering

column as plane completes job, heads fo r its Fifth AF base.

while Eleventh Air Force and Fleet Air Wing Four planes

bombed Paramushiru and Shimushu in the northern Kuriles.

As the battle for Saipan progressed, carrier planes continued

to sweep Guam, Rota, Pagan and Iwo while the AAF con

centrated on Truk, Woleai, Yap and Ponape. The by-passed

bases at Rabaul and in the Marshalls were attacked daily.

The threat in U. S. occupation of Saipan was obvious and

the Jap fleet came out of hiding. It was discovered west of

Guam, and our carriers attacked on 19 Jun e. The ensuing

Battle of the Philippine Sea was another in the series of

naval engagements in which all of the contact was from the

ai r and in which Japan's fleet was defeated. The enemy lost

428 planes, including those hit on the ground on Marianas

bases in accompanying side action. Jap ship losses were 17

sunk or damaged. The U. S. fleet lost 122 aircraft and 72

men. During almost the entire action, the American carrier

planes were striking at about the limit of their radius of

action, and most of our losses were due to forced landings

in the sea when the planes gave out of gas. The enemy's airreaction to the Saipan landing was strong, but our air superi

ority was never in serious jeopardy. From the opening of

the pre-invasion attacks on 11 Jun e to a relatively stabilized

condition on 28 June, enemy plane losses in the Marianas

and to the west in the Philippine sea totaled more than 750_

On D plus 5, an engineer aviation battalion began un

loading equipment and on D plus 6 began repairing the

runway at Aslito (renamed Isely) airfield. On D plus 7,

Seventh Air Force Thunderbolts, ferried from Hawaii by

CVE, Ianoed ano took off on missions against enemy ground


25



26

LONG TREK continued

forces. The engineers widened and lengthened the runway,

then turned to construction of a heavy bomber stri p. They

interrupted their work on the night of D plus 12 to wipe out

300 Japs who had broken through and overrun the airfield,

but it was only a temporary halt. The Saipan operation was

typical of the speed with which aviation engineers prepared

new airfields: Isely field , started 21 June, operational for

fighters 22 June, for Liberators 9 August, for B·29s 15

October; Kagman Point field, started 1 July, operational for

fighters 20 Jul y; Kobler field, started 1 August, operationalfor heavy bombers 11 November. The engineers moved

4,500,000 cubic yards of coral and earth, produced 127,322

tons of asphaltic cement, paved 11 ,000,000 square feet of

surface and consumed more than 1,250,000 ga llons of diesel

fuel in their round·the·c1ock performance.

After Saipan came Guam on 21 July, followed by Tinian

on 23 July. Again both invasions were preceded by heavy

air and naval bombardment, some of the help coming from

the land·based planes on Saipan. Th e islands were "secured"

by mid.August although isolated Japs were being picked off

months later.

Plane of the Air Transport Command followed almost in

the prop wash of combat planes as new ba es were taken.Operations on the long overwater route steadily increa ed,

with personnel flown from the United States to the Pacific

theater in nine months of 1945 totaling 80,847 as against

75,560 in al l of 1944. Similarly, in 1945, through Septem·

ber, tonnage flown was 39,518 and in 1944 it was 28,86l.

Evacuation of casualties to the U. S. , a major factor in reo

ducing the death rate from wounds , total ed 36,000 in 1945

and 10,4,98 in 1944.

Meanwhile, preparations went forward for the long-antici

pated drive back into the Philipp ines. On 15 September, the

Palau islands were invaded, the marines heading into tough

opposition on Peleliu , and army ground forces having a

somewhat easier time on Angaur. Thi placed the Central

Philippines within range of our heavy bombers. MacArthur

moved into Morotai, north of Halmahera, and the tage

was set for all forces to unite in a single plan.

Back to the Philippines

In no previous Pacific operation did the preparatory phase

cover such a vast area and involve so many different st riking

elements. The leading role was played by a tremendous

carrier force of the Thi rd Fleet, which struck along a vast

arc from the Philippines to Marcus i land, the Ryukyus and

Formosa. In late September, they wrecked the Manila area,

destroying 357 aircraft , and the next day pounded Leyte,

Panay and Cebu. Then , in early October, they cut loose with

a series of terrific wallops: Marcus island on the 9th, theRyukyus on the 10th, Formosa on the 12th and 13th, and

Manila again on the 15th and 17th. Their score was 915

enemy planes destroyed, 128 ships sunk and 184 damaged.

They lost no ships and only 94 of their own planes. This

was essentially an operation to isolate the battlefield, to

make it difficult fo r the enemy to reinforce the Philippines.

Fitting into the same scheme were three attacks on Formosa

by China-based B-29s, constant attacks by the Fifth and

Thirteenth ai r forces on the sou thern Philippines and East

Indies flank, by the Seventh on the Bonins , and by the

Fourteenth against harbors and shipping along China coast.

On 20 October, troops poured ashore at Leyte.

Leyte was a dud from the beginning. As far as the air

forces were concerned, it was mostly a case of mud. Tor

rential rains bogged us down everywhere. For the first time

since we had struggled with the mud hole that became Hen

derson field, airfield construction was agonizingl y slow.

and it became apparent before lon g that our bomber streng th

could not be pulled into Leyte. Tacloban airstrip was the

only strip that proved of real value. From it, the V FighterCommand, its planes jammed wingtip to wingtip, for weeks

did an all-around ai r force job , handling many tasks that

normally would have been given to the bombers. The latter.



Hying from Morotai, the Palaus, and bases on northwest

New Guinea, were forced by distance to carry lighter loads.

It had been expected that soon after invading Leyte they

would be operating in force against northern Luzon.

Leyte wa the closest we had come in a long time to

lo sing a show. With the infantry and artillery slowly widen·

in g the beachhead perimeters and carrier aircraft the only

umbrella over them, the Japanese navy appeared. It came

in three sepa rate thrusts, although one from the north never

go t into the Leyte action because it was met and routed byplanes of the Third Fleet north of Luzon. The other two

force moved in from the west, threading their way through

the islands toward Leyte gulf, where the light and escort

carriers of the Seventh Fleet were protecting the invasion.

Although spotted as they moved in and attacked by sub-

marines, torpedo boats and planes, a strong Jap force

reached Leyte gulf and on the morning of 25 October began

shelling our carriers .

De sp ite the heavy ships the Japs had brought into the action

lhrough San Bernardino strait, the battle swung in our

favor and the enemy withdrew after suffering serious losses.

In this action the Japs 10 t a golden opportunity, which was

actually in their hands, to destroy our entire escort carrierand transport Aeet in Leyte gu lf. Ou r carriers, destroyers

and destroyer escorts covered themselves with glory against

tremendou s odds. Meanwhile to the south the old battleships


27



LOla TREK continued

of the Seventh Fleet, though short of ammunition, together

with a fleet of PT boats, destroyers and cruisers, decisively

defeated the enemy force which attempted to join the battle

through Surigao strait. The Jap bid to halt the Leyte invasion

had failed and their fleet had been reduced by sinkings and

damage to task-force size. Our losses were the carrier Prince

ton, two escort carriers, two destroyers and one D.E.

During all the operations in September and October, it

was the carrier forces of the Third Fleet that dominated the

air action and deserved the major share of credit. On the

eve of the Battle for Leyte gulf, the Navy's vast Carrier Task

Force 38 had a complement of 1,082 planes, and its Task

Force 77, with the smaller carriers, could put some 600

planes into the air. The Fa r Eastern Air Forces (Fifth and

Thirteenth) had 1,457 planes assigned to tactical units and

5 ~ 4 held in ready reserve. The Seventh, in the Marianas,

Palaus and Marshalls, had another 526. While there were

more land-based aircraft, the mobility of the carriers enabled

the massing of great carrier striking strength at any re

quired point. Truly, in these two months, carrier air, in

a war dominated by sea masses rather than land masses,

proved itself indispensable.

The end at Leyte came when the Japs discovered it was

just as difficult as back at New Guinea to reinforce a be-

sieged garrison. On 10 November, a Jap convoy bound for

Ormoc on Leyte's west coast was hit by B-25s in a masthead

attack which sank three transports and six escorts. The next

day Navy planes smashed another Ormoc-bound convoy.

On 7 December, Fifth Air Force fighter bombers sank all

vessels in a 13-ship convoy, and four days later destroyed

most of another, both near Ormoc.

Jap Air Debacle on Luzon

Throughout the Leyte campaign the Japs had dissipated

their ai r streT!gth in frequent, small attacks. Their opportunity was missed at the beginning when heavy, sustained

pressure might have turned the tide. When we made an

amphibious landing at Ormoc bay, followed on 15 December

by a landing on Mindoro, the Japs struck hard. But this time

it was too late. Once on the firm soil of Mindoro, the Fifth

Air Force was able to pull its main bomber strength up to

the Philippines. The Fifth now took up where the carriers

had left off. In three weeks, the remainder of the Japanese

ai r establishment in the Philippines was utterly demolished.

On 9 January, when MacArthur invaded the Lingayen gulf,

only two Japanese planes appeared over the beach. Never,

in the European war or previously in the Pacific war, had

such a crushing ai r defeat been administered. The Fifth Air

Force destroyed more than 2,000 enemy planes in the Philip.

pines. Yet the Japs had plenty more. Japanese aircraft

production reached its highest level at this very time. They

finally gave up sending more planes into the Philippines

because the organization to operate them had been wiped

out. The Fifth Air Force not only made every decent air·

field unserviceable, but also left every repair shop and

storage depot a shambles. The entire ground maintenance

system collapsed. When our forces reached Clark field,

they found a George fighter which needed only a carburetor

to fly. Dozens of carburetors, as well as engines, wheels and

hundreds of other parts, were found dispersed at nearby

Mahalaeat town in shacks, IInder bllildings, and even buried

in the fields. The George wasn't alone. Many planes were in

almost flyable condition.

From this overwhelming defeat, the Japanese high com

mand, however reluctantly, could draw only one conclusion:

it would be senseless, in the future, to continue using their

air force in the conventional manner. There was only one

course left: a Kamikaze, or suicide, ai r force.

For the balance of the Philippines campaign, the FifthAir Force was free to roam at will against the shipping

routes of the South China sea and to neutralize Formosa.

This meant the Fifth had taken over ai r commitments within

range of the Philippines, freeing the carriers for two major

tasks-Iwo and Okinawa.

Daylight attacks on Formosa started in January and soon

B-24s, B-25s, P-38s and P-5ls were making regular strikes

which at first were in preparation for and later in aid of the

Okinawa campaign. The B-24s also reached out across the

China sea to disrupt communications in Indo-China. B-25s

were a potent striking force against shipping with their

precis ion luw-Ievel attacks. In the Philippines , the Fifth

put on a whirlwind bombing and troop carrier show at

Corregidor, and , without ai r interferf.nce , swept against

enemy troops wherever they still faced MacArthur. C:lt

standing were missions in aid of guerrillas, and napalm fire

bomb attacks on Japs holed up in mountain caves.

The Thirteenth Air Force, meanwhile, had been protecting

the left rear flank as MacArthur turned north from New

Guinea. It policed the Netherlands East Indies and southern

Philippines, knocking out harbor installations, airfields,

oil facilities and shipping. Borneo, Java, Celebes, Ambon,

Ceram and lesser islands were scoured by planes of the

Thirteenth and the RAAF. Snoopers (single B-24s) picked

off shipping in Makassar strait. The oil center of Balikpapan

was put out of action in four major strikes in which Fifth

Air Force heavies joined. The East Indies thus were eliminated as a staging area for Philippines reinforcement and

were softened up for invasion.

Meanwhile, the Central Pacific forces forged their final

arch in the bridge needed to put fighters over Japan. To

the B-29s bombing Japan from the Marianas, Iwo had be-

come increasingly annoying. To convert this warning sta

tion and interception point into a haven for distressed B-29s

and a forward base for fighter sweeps over Japan, it was

invaded on 19 February. Hardly had the bloody struggle

for Iwo ended when Okinawa was invaded. Coming so soon

after Iwo and at the very doorstep of the Home Islands, the

invasion of Okinawa was a show of power that jolted the

American public into the realization that the war against

Japan might be approaching the final phase.

The Kamikaze Onslaught

This time the preparation included sustained strikes at

Japan itself. The February blows in the Tok yo-Yokohama

area prior to the Iwo landing were dwarfed by those which

preceded the Okinawa invasion. The Fifth Fleet on 18 and

19 March disposed of most of what remained of the Jap fleet

and destroyed 475 enemy aircraft as its planes struck at air

fields and anchorages in southern Honshu and Kyushu. From

23 to 29 March it made daily attacks on Okinawa and on

seuthern Kyushu to disrupt reinforcements and supply. The

Fifth Air Force intensified its attacks on Formosa and was



The men and their tools on Ie. P-47 spans final gap to Japan from runway shaped by bulldozers, engineers.

joined by British carriers in strikes on airfields and trans·

portation facilities. Jap airfields on the east China coast

were neutralized by the Fourteenth.

Okinawa was invaded on 1 April and, after a few days of

easy going, our ground forces ran into Japanese resistance

that remained fanatical to the end. Japan 's air force ap '

peared in its new trappings, and the Navy went through hell.At Leyte, where the Japs first tried suicide tactics on more

than an individual scale, they were a menace, but not a

critical one. Now, at Okinawa, the Japs came up with a pre·

dominantly suicide ai r force and the threat was critical in

the extreme. The U. S. fleet and ships off Okinawa, were a

made·to·order target for Kamikaze attack. The Japs did not

repeat the piecemeal mistake of Leyte.

On 6 April, date of the first intensive attack, the Navy was

knocking down the Kamikazes without a moment's respite

from dawn to dusk. Major assaults were made five times

during the month and on the other days there were attacks

at frequent intervals. The fleet 's ai r patrol intercepted most

of the Kamikazes but a large number inevitably got through

to the outer screening ring of destroyers. A few piercedthe defenses and reached the major fleet units. Proximity

fuses, which detonated the ships' antiaircraft she lls even

though direct hits were not made on the enemy planes, in·

creased the toll of suiciders, but damage to surface craft

continued to mount. In the 81 days of the Okinawa cam·

paign 32 ships were sunk and 216 damaged by aircraft.

Destroyers, destroyer escorts, minesweepers and smaller

craft were the heaviest losers. Nine destroyers and one de·

stroyer escort were sunk; 68 destroyers and 24 destroyer


Final signpost, totem pole style, is erected at Ie, tells the

good news that the men haven't much farther to go.

29



LONG TREK continued

escorts damaged. Two ammunition ships were blown up in

one attack. None of the major Aeet units were sunk although

many were severely damaged and lost fo r the campaign.

Th e Kamikazes used both new and obsolete planes and

introduced the Baka-a pi loted bomb-with-wings-carried

to the scene by a bomber and then released fo r its short and

only Aight. As the Aeet stayed ofT Okinawa, shelling enemy

positions and aiding the troops with carrier aircraft strikes,

the menace of the suicide attacks grew. To lessen this,

the airfields from which the Kamikazes Aew were brought

under sustained attack. Both the Amami group and the

Sakishima group of islands, north and south of Okinawa

respectively, were attacked daily by American and British

carrier planes. Task Force 58, which had been giving its

major attention to th e Japs on Okinawa, with a side ex

cursion on 7 April to sink the battleship Yamato and five

other warships which apparently were moving out on a hit

run mission to Okinawa, initiated the u tained program to

put Kamikaze bases out of co mmi s ion. The carrier planes

on 15 April strafed , bombed and rocketed airfields on Kyu

shu. The next day car rier planes, Marine Corps medium

bombers and armyfi

ghter from Iwo worked over the arnearea. Then on 17 April B-29s entered the picture. Five times

in six da ys the Superforts dropped their heavy loads on

Kyushu airfields, then after a three-day lapse, closed out the

month with five consecutive da ys of attack. Through the

early part of May the B-29s continued these blows, striking

seven times in the first 11 days. Carriers picked up where

they left ofT and gave Kyu shu a three-day dusting. By late

May, P-47s joined the attacks, Aying from the small i land

of Ie Shima near Okinawa. The e operation, combined with

increasing success of ou r troops on Okinawa, gradually

whittled down the scale of enemy attacks. In the first month

of the invasion, 1,700 Jap planes were involved in ordinary

or su icide attacks; in May the total dropped to 700 and in

June it was less than 300. Ou r ground successes were a

greater factor in this reduction than the breaking up of

Kyu shu airfields, for with the island definitely fallin g to us,

the Japs withheld the bulk of their planes fo r a last-ditch

defense of the Home Is lands.

Long before Okinawa was wholly won, we began to carve

out a network of bases which was to hold the invasion ai r

force. As the Japs were compre sed into the southern part

of the island , fields began to blossom profusely over the

cen tral parts. As the bases took shape, they began to fill

with planes and daily strikes were made on Kyu shu, paralyz

ing transportation, airfields, and cities. The final softening

up for invasion in November was under way. Throughout

July the tempo increased and by early August, despite un

favorable weather, between 350 and 450 sorties were being

Aown dail y. This wa sca rce ly a sa mple of what was in

tore, for from 23 ba es on Ie and Okinawa, the re-deployed,

B-29-equipped Eighth Ai r Force was to join Gen. Kenney'shuge tactical ai r for ce in smoo thing the invasion path. Even

as the war ended the Navy was basing 625 planes on Oki

nawa, 32 B-29s had arrived and 1,317 planes of the tactical

ai r force were read y to go .

It wa an ironical twist of fate for Kenney, who had done

so much with so little, particularly in the early days, finally

to get a force of rea lly great size just when it was no longer

needed. For without a landing in Japan to put the final span

of the Pacific bridge in place, the long trek ended.

Northern Japan blazed too. Here Third Fleet carrier planes work over the town oj Nemura on Hokkaido.



Here, at la st, is the end of the lon g trek fo r the Fifth's . . .B-25s-attack on Japan itselL Above, camera has caught

one Mitchell a moment after bombs away on an oil refinery_

The refinel'Y, at Koyagi Shima, off the Japanese mainland,

has erupted into a mass of Aam es and bursting bombs as the

B-25 pull away. Attack was made ea r ly in August . . .



Part

3ASIA FLANKlOth and 14th Buled the A ir in Burma and China

America's aerial effort in Asia was long an undernourished

child. forced by circumstan ces to fend for itself ; to im·

provise and, at first. to cling to its s lender thread of life

by whatever means it cou ld. It developed into an un·

orthodox, vigorous air force. Its main achievements in

Burma were in making it po sible for A llied troops to exist

in th e jun gle by suppl ying. evacuating and transpo rting

th em on an unprecedented sca le and in making the Japanese

po ition untenabl e, literally through starvation , by destruc·

tion of th eir suppl y bases which disappea red in a welter of

bombed bridges, river boats, railroad trackage and freight

junctions. In China it achieved command of the skies ov er

Chinese tr oo ps, and tore ga pin g hol es in th e enemy supply

routes on land and sea. Betw een India and China it flew the

Hump in th e grea test sustained transportation achieve·

ment of th e war. And it did all this in weather which for

more than half each year was so bad one pilot was moved

to remark, "Fl ying, hell! This is an amphibious operation;

we need gill more than wings."The aerial infant from which this grew was born by

Tenth Air Force activation 12 February 1942. Before that,

American ai r power in Asia consisted ex clusively of the

American Volunteer Group. Claire L. Chennault, master

ta ctician for China's ai r force had obtained 100 obsolescent

P·40s. and 100 American pilots to man th em. and some 200

ground personnel to keep them in the air. When this group

of Fl ying Ti ge rs met their first Jap ov er Ran goon on 20

December 1941, they were a single bright li ght in an other·

wise di mal sky. China was isolated except for the Burma

road and Hong Kon g, with the latter about to fall. Japanese

forces were firmly entrenched in French Indo·China , had

moved through Thailand , had swung one spearhead down

th e Malay peninsula and another into South Burma. Ran goon

fell on 10 March, then came the " walk·out" of a motley

array of British, Indian and Chinese troops led by Gen. Si r

Harold Alexander and Gen. Joseph W. (" We·took·a·hell ·of.

a·beating") Stilwell. By May most of Burma was gone, the

Kyundon, on Jap suppl y route in central Burma , blazes

during interdiction attack by 10th AF B·25s, one of who e

shad ows is show n passinO" over th e five pagodas at lower lef t

Burma road cut and China isolated . Western prestige had

hit a new low in the Orient.

During this period of unre lieved Allied military dis·

aster, the A VG and a hand ful of RAF planes performed bril·

liantly in local engagement , but could do no more thanimpede the enemy advance. Bases were bombed out by the

Japs and the Flying Tigers were pressed back into China.

Always outnumbered, and flying relatively slow aircraft, the

AVG nevertheless hung up a phenomenal record during the

seven months of its operational life: 298 enemy planes de·

stroyed in combat for a loss of 12. This proved the sound·

ness of Chennault's precepts, which were to fly in pairs,

take one swipe at the enemy and get gone . It also punctured

the ba lloon of invincibility growing up around the speedy,

highl y maneuverable Zero, and proved that ruggedness,

speed in dives, and fire power could be made to beat an

enemy who, although a fancy dog·fighter, was not so rugged.

Th e Tenth Air Force got a handful of planes in March,

1942. It had the B·17 and the LB·30 (ea rl y B·24) with whichMaj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton and his party had flown from

the Netherlands East Indies. It added six B·17s and ten

PAOs which had been scheduled fo r Java but which were

diverted. With this tiny force it expected daily to have to

help repel an invasion of India . But by May, 1942, this no

longer appeared imminent so the primary mission of air in

Asia th en shifted from defense of India to aid to China. Thi s

meant ferrying operations over th e Himalaya mountains-

th e famed Hump route. A few planes from China National

Airways and some DC-3s obtained via Africa and flown

by commercial airline pilots started th e operations. The first

transport assignment was delivery of 30,000 gallons of

gaso line and 500 gallons of oil , intended for Doolittle's 18

April raiders. By August 1942 they had become the India·China Ferry Command, and on 1 December the Air Trans·

port Command took over.

On the first anniversary of war, ATC had only 29 trans·

port planes to fuel and supply the war in China. In all

India the Tenth had only 16 heavy bombers, 15 mediums and

50 fighters operational. U. S. planes in China that day

totaled 10 mediums and 50 fighters. These pathetic num·

bers were due partly to a diversion of reinforcements, partly

to an actual withdrawal of planes to the Middle East, both in


33



34

ASIA FLAIK ( '0111;" lied

Three carriers tell story of India air bases: native labor and burros, the builders; an d planes, the users.

Maintenance can't wait: neither will Burma rain. Ground

crews rig tarp for overhaul of B-25 at forward airfield.

Elmer the Elephant load C-46 for Hump Haul , can do

work of more than dozen natives in handlin g drums of fuel.



Beneath this C-46 is the Hump, whose rocky peaks and ice-filled clouds were conquered for supply of China.


an effort to repel Rommel 's drive on Egypt. Th e Tenth lost all of its

heavy bombers in this way and had none at all for some time. ATC grew

th e fastes t. At first it ca rried gaso lin e, oil, and replacement parts to

China·based aircraft. Grad uall y it started carr ying heavy equipment.

By Octobe r 1943 a schedu Ie of ni ght flights over th e stormy barrier

peaks was added. By 1 August 1945 ATC was abl e to tall y up a month's

delivery of 71.000 tons- over four times th e ca pacity of the old Burma

road- and it had tepped that up to a ra te of more than 85,000 tons

monthl y in the final da ys of th e war. Before it could begin to expand,

however, it had to have bases. It had to get its own supplies , as well asthose it was transporting to China, from harbors to the take·off point via

ai r or inadequate rail, highway, and river transportation . Its planes in

late sp rin g, summer, and early fall fl ew in monsoon weather of rain,

hail , wind, and turbulence. In winter they flew through ice-laden clouds,

piled high above th e 18,000·foot Himalayan peaks. But they flew in

ever-increa ing numbers.

The AVG was absorbed into the Tenth Air Force on 4 July 1942 and

redesignated the China Ai r Task Force. Chennau It, recall ed to active

duty as a brigadier general , was nfl.med its commander. In March 1943

the Chin a Air Task Force became th e independent U. S. Fourteenth.


IN 0IA

Long supply lines were vulnerable to interdiction.

Note only a road connects Lashio and Lampang.

3



Air drops such as this, watched by Britishers, kept more than 350,000 troops in action in Burma in 1945.

Eight thousand feet in the ai r on a nylon line, glider of

1st Air Commandos puts Wingate troops behind enemy lines.Broken bridges spelled starvation throughout Burma

jungles for Japs. Dive·bombing B·24s of 10th AF did this.



These are the airfield builders. Throughout China, as here at Hsintsin, the coolies supplied the power.


Meanwhile, two British land campaigns were set in motion

in Burma to combat the growing Japanese forces there whichwere threatening to drive across the Indian border and cut

off the ATC bases now being bui lt in Northeast India. Both

these ground operations were on a limited scale. On the

ce ntral front, Britain's Gen. Orde Charles Wingate infil·

trated a brigade of jungle troops through the Japanese and

for three months harried the rear areas whi le depending

wholly on air supply. Farther south, in the Arakan, the

British engaged in an orthodox, unsuccessful campaign.

Basing its decision on the experience of these two opera·

tions, th e Quebec conference in August 1943 approved plans

for a determined drive the following year-a drive which

was to utilize the lessons of 1943, and profit from a unified

command, coordinating efforts of the Tenth Air Force and

th e RAF Bengal Air Command under the Eastern Air Com

mand , commanded by Maj. Gen. George Stratemeyer. As

the India forces were depleted in 1942 to support the Middle

East, they were reinforced from the Middle East once the

African campaign was won. The 7th Bomb Group (H) was

the one which was called out of India and it was sent back.

The 12th Bomb Group (M), whose B-25s had fought across

orth Africa, also was assigned to the Tenth Air Force.

The push began in late 1943 with a limited British-Indian

offensive into the Arakan. A it moved ahead, Japanese

infiltration units struck the rear lines and cut communica

tions. But unlike the previous year, the troops now weresupplied by aerial drops from planes of Brig. Gen. William

D. Old's Troop Carrier Command. They held, strengthened,

and broke out of the trap.

Northward on the central front, a similar situation de-

ve loped. Two British-Indian co lumns, moving out of

Imphal, had been hit on the north and the south flanks by

a major Japanese drive. The enemy pressed on, entrapping

the British on the Imphal plain, and posing a critical threat

to the Assam-Bengal railway over which supplies were

moved to Chinese-American forces building the Ledo road.

For the second time Gen. Old's Troop Carrier Command

carne to the rescue. The 5th Indian Division, with all its

mountain batteries and mules, was lifted into the Imphal

area in 60 hours. Two brigade groups were flown to Kohima.

Two hospitals and thousands of wounded and non-essential

personnel were flown out. And, most important of all, food

and ammunition were flown in.

The result was inevitable. The British troops had a

ecure ai r supply route while the Japanese had a land sup

ply route which was under constant harrassment by combat

planes. The threat to India was ended and these operations

became the pattern fo r the ensuing campaign fo r al l Burma.

Japan's forces in Burma were supplied by a long, slender


37



14th AF P·38 cuts loose with a fire bomb (below tail) against 1,100.joot bridge at Wan Lai·kam in Burma.

\

Under attack by 14th AF B-25s, 9,000-foot Yellow river

bridge takes misses (left ), near misses (center) , hits (right).

Note AA tower near bottom, left. Bridge was repeatedly

struck. Flimsy Jap repair job once put locomotive in river.




rail-highway-river system, with on Iy a few lines running

north and south. The interdiction campaign in Burma was

based on th e fact that with Rangoon and other south Burma

ports under sustained air attack, th e enemy wa s force d to

use Bangkok as his principal port. Thi s meant car rying

supplies on an additional stretch of ri ckety railroad running

through miles of coastal country before they could be moved

north. There were hundreds of bridges on this line. The

solution, then, to denial of supplies to the enemy was to

kn ock out the bridges and railroad trackage. This was donewith regularity. The Japs we re skillful at repair but our

aircraft we re abl e to keep ahead of th e repair crews. Radio

guided bombs were used with exce ll ent results, and B-24s

wo rk ed out a 25-degree dive angle technique which

in creased accuracy. Th e Jap suppl y problem became c ritical ,

and troop at the north end of th e line eventuall y became

starved and disease-ridden. These were the troops facing

Gen. Stilwell 's Chinese-Ameri can forces who were working

th eir way ahead of th e enginee rs building the Ledo road.

Air supply was vital to Stil we ll 's dri ve. A picked group

of 3,000 vo lunteers-Merrill 's Marauders-followin g the

technique of Gen. Wingate, stru ck off into the jungle as an

adv ance spearhead probing toward Myitkyina . From 23

February until 17 May -w hen Myitk yina airfield was taken- th e Marauders were entirely supplied by air. Nearly

8,000 Chinese troops were fl ow n over th e Hump from Yun

nanyi, China, in one operation, as fr ont-line reinforcements

for Stilwe ll ' forces. By th e end of October, 1944, 75,527

personnel had bee n flown into North Burma, 7,693 had

been shifted within th e area, and 28,181 had been flown out.

In ye t anoth er 1944 opera ti on an a rmy was abl e to make a

deliberat e choice of entrapment through reliance on ai r.

The Fi r t Air Commando Group under Col. Ph i lip G.

Cochran was organized to put Gen. Wingate's tr oo ps inside

Burma betw een Myi tk yin a and Katha, to supply them, to

evacuate th e casua lties, and to sweep in front of the columns

with bombers and fighters. The objective of Wingate's

men was to cut suppl y Jin es in th e rear of Japanese troops

oppos ing Stil we ll and Merrill.

March 5 was D-Day for Wingate and Cochran. Take-off

time was set to put the gliders, with their cargoes of troops,

airborne engin ee rs, bulldozers and mules, over th e secret

jungle clearings of " Broadway" and "Pi cc adilly" ju t after

dusk. So secret was th e operation, that th e clearings were

not reco nnoitered for fear th e Japanese would divine th e

intention and obstru ct them. But, on a hunch, Co l. Cochran

sent a photo reconnaissance plane out th e afternoon of

D-Day . Its we t prints we re handed to him 15 minutes before

take-off and he found that Pi ccadill y was a death trap .

The Japs had covered it with logs.

Pl an we re chan ged sw iftl y to put the force down onBroad way a lone and , with a postponement of only 30

minutes, th e first wave of 26 transports, each to wing two

gliders, headed eas t. A second wave wa s dispatched, but all

planes except one we re ca ll ed back because th e landing field

had become littered with g liders that had smashed up in

landing due to overloadin g. Of the 54 gliders in the first

wave , 17 did not reach Piccadill y bec ause to w lines snapped.

Des pite th e losses and confusion, 539 personn el, three

mules and 29,972 pounds of supplies and equipment were

land ed that first night. Airborne engin ee rs went to work

and by the next afternoon Broadway wa s read y for C-47s.

Complete surpri e had been achieved. A second field

wa s set up the night after the first. Men and supplies poured

in. By D plus 6, the total was 9,052 men, 175 ponies, 1,183

mules and 509,083 pounds of stores. During the entire

operation our bombers and fi ghters were masters of the air

over Wingate's troops.

More troops and supplies were ferried to the fighting area.

Light planes landed bes ide th e advancing columns on hastily

scratched-out clearings, to pick up casualties. The exactstatistics on the "g rasshoppers" will never be available be

cause the commandos took literally General Arnold's in

junction: "To hell with paper work; go out and fight." A

reasonable gue ss is that they fl ew more than 8,000 sorties.

Wh en the XX Bomber Command's B-29s ended operations

in China in late 1944, they turned their heavy loads loose in

aid mf the Burma campaign while aw aiting a final shift to th e

Ma rianas. Singapore and Palembang were hit but blows

against Rangoon and Bangkok were their principal assign

ments. In their first maximum-load attack each plane

dr opped 40 500-lb. bombs, wiping out a Rangoon rail yard.

While the North Burma forces were advancing, British

Indian troops which had withstood the Jap attack at Imphal

also took the offensive. Their advan ce was speeded by air

leaps to airheads (airfields captured or built to keep supply

bases near the advancing front ) . When on 8 March 1945

Mandalay and Lashio fell , the route to China was clear.

Rangoon remained. By 1945, it wa s almost useless to

Japan , but not until it was in Allied hands would the Burma

campaign be ended. The British, with air lashin g out in

front of them, continued southward. Lt. Gen. Sir William

Slim, commanding the troops, radioed the 12th Bomb

Group: " You have been a po we rful factor in helping us g ive

th e little bastards a thorough thrashing."

By March, 1945, the southward-moving troop .3 in Burma

wholl y dependent on ai r supply totaled 356,000. With the

monsoon seasonnear

,it

was decided tobrid

ge the distanceto Rangoon by a seaborne invasion aided by the whole

we ight of Allied ai rcraft. On 1 May, Gurkha paratroopers

jumped from C-47s, swept meagre resistance aside, and th e

next day the seaborne troops piled ashore to find Rangoon

abandoned. The Burma campaign was over.

All this time the Fourteenth Air Force , which eventually

included the Chin ese-American Composite Wing, made up

of U.S .-trained Chinese and AAF airmen, was ran ging ov er

China, assisted by a reporting net of thousand s of Chinese.

Initially it operated from bases prepa red or planned before

America's entry into the war. It gradually acquired new

bases until finall y there we re 63 which the coolies had

laboriously fashioned. Because of them, Gen. Chennault wa s

abl e to shift his fo rces wh en enemy air or ground oppositionbecame too threatening-as it often did- and employ them

without delay against ne w targets.

Greatest of the bases was Chengtu. Its nine fields were

built in 1944 in nine months by a peak of 365,000 workers

who moved two million cubic yards of earth and laid two

and a quarter million cubic yards of paving at a total cost

of nine billion Chinese dollars. Thi s was the B-29 forward

stagin g base from which the first attack was launched

on Japan . It also was the springboard for attacks on North

China, Manchuria, and Formosa.


3



Straight line in pattern of rice fields is broken by 14th AF hit on rail line between Yochow and Changsha.

At Siaokichen, interior China, Chinese-American Wing

planes lay down bull 's-eye bomb pattern to blot out rail yard.

River grave is dug for junk and its cargo at Haiphong,

French Indo-China, by China-based 14th Air Force raider.



Gen. Chennault's Aiers had no connection with the B·29s

other than defense of the bases. Their main duties were:

protection of the Hump, close cooperation with China's

. armies. and attacks on shipping and rail communications.

The Fourteenth made up for its tiny size by reliance on

deception, at which Chennault was a past master. He knew

the capabilities, numbers and speeds of the enemy and by

the judicious employment of feints and bluffs, he used this

knowledge to insure that he met the enemy where and when

he wanted. Thu s. even in the early days when he was greatlyoutnumbered. he often managed to have local ai r superiority

and almost always managed to be on top of the enemy so

that th e high diving speed of his P-40s would count. In one

case, late in ]942. Chennault saw to it that Japanese agents

got wind of an impending strike from a forward base against

Hong Kong. The mission got under way on schedule; the

Jap got set to defend Hong Kong. At the last minute, the

U. S. force of eight bombers and 22 fighters, after appar

ently being on the way past Canton to Hong Kong, swung

sharply into Canton and caught the off-balance Jap de·

fenders coming up below them. Result : 22-23 Nip planes

destroyed in the ai r and more on the ground; no American

p lanes lost.

Gen. Chennault's bombers ranged over the South and EastChina seas in quest of Jap shipping. Staging at East China

hases for thei r missions, until these bases were lost early in

1945, they utilized to the fullest low-altitude radar bombing

for night and low-ceilin g attacks. They became the scourge

of ships following the coast, gradually forcing them farther

out where they became prey to U. S. submarines.

One of the Fourteenth's most heart-breaking tasks was aid

10 China's armies. The Japanese always had enough-more

than enough- land power to go where they would against

the ·tubbornly contesting but ill-equipped Chinese. The

Fourteenth co uld. and did, impede the advances and make

them costly. It could do little more, but in the final analysis

that was enough . Japan's unwillingness to pay the price

always saved China.

The first direct ai r aid to troops was in the late spring of

1943 when the enemy launched a limited offensive south and

southwest of the Yangtze river in the Tungting lake area.

Only a few planes were available. About al l that could be

placed on the credit side of the ledger was experience for

the pilots and bol stered morale for the overpowered Chinese.

Later in 1943. seven Jap divisions struck at Changteh.

>'outheast of Tungting lake. Thi ' time they met stiffer ground

resistance, heavier ai r attack from a stronger Fourteenth

Air Force. The Japanese had sufficient power to move ahead

hut they were looking for a cheap victory and this was

not the p lace. They withd rew.

The high tide of the Japanese advance in China came in1944. Between May and the end of the year the invaders,

driving west from Canton and southwest toward Indo-China,

severed Ea t China from West China with consequent isola·

tion of East China ai r bases, captured the ai r bases at

Hengyang, Lingling, Kwei lin, Liuchow and Nanning, a.nd

established a continuous line of communication from French

Indo·China to North China. In early 1945 the Japanese

:e ized all of the north·sou th rail line from Hankow to

Canton . then pushed eastward and took th e Fourteenth's East

China airfit'ld" al SlIichwan and Kanchow. Loss of territory

was nothing new to the Chinese; they had been giving

ground since 1937. But evacuation and demolition of the

laboriously constructed airfields and the necessary destruc

tion of precious supplie was a bitter blow to them as well as

to the Fourteenth.

Although Chennault's men were driven from one base to

another, operations again t rail lines and freight yards,

supply depots, airfields, moving troops and river shipping

were carried on remorse les Iy. Throughout this period, as

earlier, the incredibly vast Chinese information net wasinvaluable. When river craft assembled- and river ship

ping was an integral part of the transportation system-the

Fourteenth was advised. It total tally of 24,299 miscella

neous river craft claimed sunk or damaged was the result. So

effective were its rail attacks that Japan could neither fully

use the lines she had nor extend lines which would have

exploited the Indo-China link. From the days of the A VG,

qualitative superiority in the ai r was always on the side of

China. The 2,353 Jap aircraft destroyed and the 780 prob

ably destroyed in China were never replaced in sufficient

numbers to overcome the more effective fighter pilots,

bomber crews, tactics and planes of the United States.

So complete was aerial mastery that Japan dared not at

tack by day and its last inland night bombing was against

Kunming in December 1944. By April 1945, al l ai r attacks

against American or Chinese installations had ended and

the Japanese ai r force in China was an all but forgotten foe.

When Jap reverses in Southwest China and in North

Burma finally led to re-opening of the land route to China

in the early spring of 1945, one of the tasks which had been

set before our ai r power in Asia in 1942 had been accom

plished. But the picture was no longer the same. ATC was

Aying into China a greater tonnage than the road could

ever carry and the triumphant Pacific forces of the United

States were pounding Japan from island and carrier bases.

Japan, now, began to withdraw her forces from their points

of deep penetra tion. As they moved back, they were pushedby the revitalized Chinese and hit by everything which could

be thrown at them from the air. However, it was a planned

withdrawal. Japan was through as an occupant of interior

China. Her position in the war had deteriorated to a point

where the occupation brought dim inishing returns.

The Japanese warlords' proud plans for Asia had been

crushed when ai r power and land power were linked to turn

back the thrust toward India and to re-open the Burma road.

Their hope of substituting a land route for the effectively

shattered sea route to the riches of the south faded when the

Fourteenth blasted their highways, railroads and river craft

into uselessness. The value of China as a granary for them

lessened as their cargo carriers, in ever increasing numbers,

splintered from bombs and bullets. They were opposed byarmies strengthened by airborne equipment and supplies.

And, finally , having lost the air, their own armies were wide

open to the most-feared fate of any ground force--constant.

unchallenged attack by the opposing ai r force.

So the Japanese withdrew, moving north under pressure

of ground and ai r forces. And the Fourteen th in the final

days of war, shifted its attack to the targets fa r to the north

which stood before the Soviet armie ; targets on a roan to

Tokyo that never was needed.

4



Part

4BLOCKADESubs, Airplanes, Mi,.es Strangled the Homela, .d

The blockade of Japan was, from the beginning of the

war. one of the main objectives of American ai r and sea

power. It was postulated on a set of co nditions which were

believed to make Japa n at leas t as vulnerable to blockade

as any great power in modern histor y. Fi rst, she was sur·

rounded by water. Second, she had a huge population, and

depended on ex tra·ter ritorial sources for at leas t 20 per cent

of her food. Her nutritional standard s were so low

a lready that denial of this 20 per cent was expected to reo

suit in privation for a large part of the population. Third.

much of her manufacturing potential was in the home

islands. whereas most of th e raw materials which her in·

dustries consumed were not. Fo r exa mpl e. 90 per cent

of all oil came from overseas. 88 per cent of al l iron and

24 per cen t of a ll coa l. Fourth , the bulk of her domestic

coa l suppl y was in K yushu and Hokkaido, with the result

that 57 per cen t of all coa l was water·borne at some point

between mine and factory. Fifth. terrain and the com·

paratively poor development of the Japanese rail sys tem

made her ve ry dependent. even for domes tic transpo rt. on

coastal vessels.

In short. Japan had to have a large and active merchant

neet if she expected to exist as an effective combatant. Thi s

neet reached its maximum size in 1942. It consisted of

about 5,000 vessels of over 100 tons each. and had a total

gross weight of 7,500,000 ton. (No calculation has been

made of the small coas tal vesse ls. river boats and sa mpans

of und er 100 tons gross weight. which swa rm in Japan as

thickly as fl eas on a Mexican mon grel. ) Because bf the

rapid expansion of Jap military activity to the so uth in the

early days of the war, this Aeet was strained to the utmos t.

and attacks by American submarines and aircraft were felt

immediately. The Fifth Air Force ravaged shipping lanes tothe south. introducing, in the all ·important Battle of the

Bismarck sea. low·level skip bombing by its B·25s. This

was a growing scourge until the end of the war. In the

Sou thwest Pa cific. the Thirteenth Air Force developed a

highly successful long. ran ge snooper technique for its B·24s.

Jap sailors flounder in water after their fri ga te goes down

off Indo·China coast 30 miles below Amoy. sunk by B·25s

of the Fifth Air Forces' famed 345th "Ai r Apache" Group.

Th e Fourteenth concentrated on river shipping and vessels

travelin g along the China coas t. achieving notable success

with a method for making low·level night strikes by radar.

Carrier ·based Navy planes sa nk ship s everywhere. But the

rea l vampire on Japan 's jugular vein proved to be the sub·

marine. Day in and da y out it chewed it way through more

than 100,000 tons a month with relentless regularity. The

effects of these attacks were manifold. They led to a general

weakening of the Jap effort on the various southern and

island fronts, and eventuall y dictated a squatter policy in

these places rather than one of aggres ive military develop·

ment. In addition to thi s they so res tri cted the delivery of

raw material s to Japan that an increasing number of manu·

facturing plants wa left idle. Finally, U. S. submarine

depredations caused a virtual abandonment by cargo vessels

of the great east· coast Japanese ports of Tokyo, Yokohama

and Nagoya . Thi s was more important than it sounds. It

meant that a va t amount of hipping was now being fun ·

neled into a few places: the Shimonoseki strait, whence it

co uld proceed in sa fet y up through the Inland sea ; and a

handful of smaller ports on Japan 's west coast, from which

ca rgoes were transpo rted to th e manufacturin g centers by

rail. Th e first half of the job wa now done. The aerial

half remained. I f we could clog up Shimonoseki and these

west· coast ports with mines, Japan would a lmost certainly

crumble rapidly as an organized industrial society.

It was not until the spring of 1945 that development of

ai r bases within ran ge of Japan had proceeded to a point

where a mining campaign could be undertaken on the huge

sca le believed necessary fo r success. By that time Japan's

merchant marine was down to about 2,500,000 tons. She

had been completely unable to replace losses, and as the

pace in which her remaining hips cou ld operate becamemore and more constricted, the airplane became an increas·

ingly terrible menace. In January 1945, aircraft accounted

for more than double the number of ships sunk by subs.

The first mining m was Aown on 27 March by B·29s

which sowed 900 min es in th e approaches to Shimonoseki

strait, Japan's greatest bottleneck, and by that time. han·

dling 40 per cent of al l marine traffic. In the next four

months over 12,000 mines were laid, completing the la rgest

blockade in hi story. one that lit erall y strangled Japan.

43



NAVAL

VESSELS

98

SHIPS AFLOAT

472

SHIPS SUNK

THE END OF JAP SEA POWERHere are the final result of the most decisive anti-marine

effort on record, an effort which virtually erased the world'sthird largest navy, and so weakened the world's third largest

merchant Al(et that it was totall y inadequate at th e end of

the war to take care of more than a fraction of the needs

of its country's industry and its country's people.

The Jap navy is in an even sorrier condition than the

drawing above shows. The one battleship aAoat is badly

damaged. So are two of the four carriers. Two cruisers are

damaged, the other two decommissioned. Many of the de-

........

~ : : - " I ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ' - ~

st royers an d submarin es are in a similar state.

The damage wa low in starting . Save for a few de·

stroyers and one carrier th ere were no losses for six months.

Then came three resounding defeats: the Battle of Midway

in June 1942, where four ca rriers and a heavy cruiser werecratched in 24 hours; the bitter struggle for the Solomons

in October and ovember 1942, resulting in the loss of two

battleships, three cruisers and 12 destroyer; and finally the

great sea battle of the Philippines in October 1944. which

t;os t Japan three batt leships, four carriers, ten cruisers and

eight destroyers , al l in four da ys. Otherwise, Japan hoarded

her major fleet units and let the lighter ones do the work .

These were consumed at an enormous rate. 32 destroyers

go ing down in the waters arOllnd New Guinea. th e Solomons

CARGO

VESSELS

-- - -- - - - - -

-- - - - - - - - - - ~ - - ~ - - - - - - - - ......-------------------------1897 ________ ._. ______ - __ .....,., ............------

- - - ~ - - - . . - . - ~ - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - ......--- SHIPS SUNK - ___________ ..... _____ --------- ~ - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - -- OVER 1000 TONS ----- ......--- ------ -- ...... -- .......-- ......--

--------------------------..... 2300 -------------- .......--- -- ......------"""'" - __ ....1. _____ . - .......____ ...... - ___- - - - --------------------------- SHIPS SUNK . . ____ ...... ___ -_ ..... ._ __ ............ ___ ..... ----~ - - - - ...... ~ - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - -100 1000 TONS _ ~ ~ __ ----

... - ::::t _ - =t:::t :::t : ...... :=: :: t ~ : : : t ::::::::t == :::;::;: _ ...... - - - ---------- ......-- ...... ~ - - - - - - - - - - - -----_ ....._-------------------~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ : : : : : : : : : : : : : ~ ~ : : : : : ~ ~ ~ : : : : : : ~ : : : : ~ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : ~ ~ ......-- ....... ------------------ - - - ......--------------------- - ~ ~ _ ~ . _ 6 --- _____- _________ -__ -----___________ -__ -____---

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ - ~ - - - - - ......

- - ~ _ ~ _ a _____ ________________-- - - - ~ - - - - - - - - ~ - - -- - - ~

------ ------ --- --- --- ....... -----. - - - ~ - - - - ....... - - - ~ - ...... - ~ - - ~ - - - - - - - - -___ ___ ....

.-11- - - - - - - ---.__- - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . --- ______ . .L_____

_______________ ._

- ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -~ - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - ~ - - - - . . . . . I . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ....... ------ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- ~ ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - -- ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -----------------------------------

- - ....... - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - -~ - ~ - - -- ---------------------- ----------- , . , .- - " " " ! - . : : ~



and the Bismarck archipelago in 1943 alone.

[n addition to the principal naval types Ii ted above, the

following were sunk up through 1 June 1945: three sea·

plane carriers, two training cruisers, 93 escort ves els, 80

sub chaser, 21 minelayers, 29 minesweepers, 42 combat

tran ports, 19 coastal patrol craft and 11 miscellaneous

\·essels. Of 600 naval vessels sunk, submarines got 199, air·

cra ft got 220, surface craft got 114, the rest being sunk bya combination uf these or by other agents.

The following figures on the Jap merchant marine refer to

vessel of over 1,000 tons only. They represent cu rrent

official Army and Navy estimates, but are subject to cor·

rection. They are the payoff on a campaign that began

immediately after Pearl Harbor. However. because of con.

struction capture and salvage, the Japs finished the year

1942 with the same- ized merchant fleet (5,950,000 tons)

that she started with, despite a total los of 1,060,384 tons

during the period. In 1943, she lost 1,871,510 tons; in 1944,

3,990,744; and in the first seven and a half months of 1945

1,323,593 tons. She started the war with 5,945,410 ton'

afloat,adding

during thewar

3,520,568 tons built, cap.tured or salvaged. At the war's end she had lost 8,236,070

lon , and wound up with only 231 vessels with a t o n n a g ~ of

860,936 able to operate. And these were disappearing at

the rate of nearly 20 per cent a month. All together, subs

got 5.128,425 tons, aircraft got 2,275,197 tons, mines got

296,428 tons (over 60 per cent of this in 1945 alone). Thebalance is miscellaneous or unknown .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................................................................................................................................

............. ....., ..............................................,.... ............................................................................................................... .-- .... -" - ............

..................................................................................................... ............................................................................. ....., ................. ..-. .....

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................... ............. .......a.- ...... ___ .....

............ .......................... ............. .............. ....... .... ............ ............................................ .-.- ..............................................................

............. ........................... ............. ........ ..... ............................................ ................................................................... - - - ~ ....................

........... ....................... ............ ........................ .. .. . ....................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..n-. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....

.............. ............. .... ..... ................................... ....................................................---. ............................. ....................................................................... ............................................. ...................................................................................................... ...........

....................................................................

................................ ........................................................................................

....................................................................... ......................... . . . . . . , ~ ............................................................................................................ ......................... .......... ........................ ............ ........... ........... ............. --- ........................................... .................. ....... .......- - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -................. ........................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................................................................... ..... ............................. ...... ~ ~ ~ ~ ............ ...... ~ ~ ~ ...... .... ...... ............. ~ ~ ~ ~........................................................ ......-. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............................................................................................................................................

........ ...................... ........... ........ ~ ~ ~ ....... ....... ............ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -..- ...................................... ....... .................~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ = = ~ ~ ~ = ~ ~ ~ = = ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ = ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ : ~ : Z ~ ~ ~ = : ~ ~ Z ~ ~ : ~ ~ Z ~ ~ ~ : ~ : ~ ~ ~ Z ~ : : ~ ~~ ~ ~ ....... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . . . . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ....... ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ....... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ = ~ = ~ ~ ~ ~ : : ~ ~ ~ Z ~ Z ~ : ~ = ~ ~ = ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ = ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ..... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ....... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ....... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ....... ....... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ....... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~....... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ........ ..... ....... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~...... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ....... ~ ~ ~ ...... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ...... ....... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~....... ....... ..................... ................ ~ . . . . - . .................................... .................................................... - - - . . - . . ~ ...... - ....... -...- .............~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ......... ......... ......... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ......... ~ ~ ~ ......... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

-----------------------------------...................... ..................................................................................... ................................................................ ~ . . a - . ~ ....... .............~ = : = ~ = ~ ~ ~ = ~ = ~ ~ ~ ~ = = = = ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Z ~ Z ~ ~ ~ : ~ Z ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ § ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ § ~ ~ ~ § ~ § ~~ = ~ = ~ = ~ ~ ~ = ~ = ~ = : : : = : : : = : : ~ = : : : : = = = = ~ = ~ : ~ : : : : : : :~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ _ ~ ~ Z ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ = ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ = ~ = ~ : ~ ~ Z ~ ~ ~ = = ~ ~ = ~ Z ~ = ~ : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Z ~ ~ ~ = : ~ = = ~ ~ = =~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~-- - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - -~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~



BLOCKADE COl i t inued

Shipping at Rahaui , major lap port in war's early phase, was wrecked by 5th AF 8-25s on 2 Nov. 1943.

Small cargo vessel, aLLempting to suppl y be leaguered Jap

troops on ew Bri tain. eLLl e- in hallow bay after 5th AF

attack. Use of such obscure bays was resorted to after strikes

at Rabaul (above) had made it too hot for shipping.



- .

lap convoy was caught of} Kavieng, New Ireland, by FEAF bombers 0" 16 February 1944, two ships sunk.

Convoy of 30-plu ship was era ed in Bismarck sea action

by 5th AF in March 1943. Below, 300-£t cargo vessel burns.

Fuel barge, skulking under cloak of vegetation in Pelikaan

bay, Timor, flames after strafing by Fifth Air Force B-25s.



lap frigate writhes in an inferno of fire from three 5th AF 8.258, will soon sink (see picture on page 42),

Snooper B·24of the Thirteenth Air Force caught thi

Japanese tankerin the Makassar stra it near 8alikpapan on 19 March 1945, sank it. Battleship Hyuga, smashed into a shambles bycarrier planes, rests on bottom of Inland sea.



Mines are laid by radar 1lY B-29s flying at 3,000-5,000 ft. altitude.

MINING COMPLETED ISOLATION OF JAPAN

Mines were strung in rows with set

distances between each. To ensure

straight flying, B-29s took bearings on

small islands or points of land. This

is western approach to Shimonoseki.

To complete the blockade of Japan

started by the submarine, Operation

"Starvation" (strategic mining of Jap

anese waters by B-29s) was com

menced on 27 March 1945_ The mines

used were of two sizes: 1,000 Ibs. for

water up to 15 fathoms, and 2,000 Ibs.

for water up to 25 fathoms. All of

them rested on the sea bottom, and

could function properly in ten feet of

mud.

Mechanically, the mines were a

marvel of ingenuity. Said one B-29

pilot, "The damned things can doeverything but fry eggs." They could

be equ ipped with a "ship count" de-

vice which permitted a specified num

ber of ships to pass into their field of

influence without causing detonation.

This effectively foiled Jap minesweep

ers, but was only used occasionally be-

cause it allowed some va luable ton

nage to slip by. A "delayed arming"


Magnetic mine with parachute at

tached is photographed during test

drop. It will sink to bottom, explode

when influenced by metal in passing

ship. Acoustic mines were also used.

49



BLOCKADE continued

device permitted the mine to come alive only after a pecified time had elapsed.

Every mine was equipped with a "sterilizing" mechanism which rendered it

impotent after a predetermined period.

The map at the right shows all mines laid, and gives a general idea of the over

all blockade strategy. Below are shown details of various stages in the mining

campaign. This was divided into five phases.

Phase I: 27 March to 2 May. This was planned in support of the Okinawa opera

tion. By mining the great ports of Kure, Hiroshima, Tokayama (naval fueling

point) and the big base at Sasebo, naval units, which otherwise would have rushed

to the defense of Okinawa, were blockaded. Equally important was the mining ofShimonoseki strait, which prevented the enemy Aeet from speeding to Okinawa

through Shimonoseki and down the relatively safe western side of Kyushu.

50

Phase 1/: 3 May to 12 May. Called the "Industrial Center Blockade," this phase

severed all major shipping lanes between the great industrial cities which de

pended on water transportation for 75 per cent of their goods. The operation

extended from Shimonoseki strait east to Tokyo bay, with particular emphasis on

the vital Kobe-Osaka port system. Ship passages in the strait were reduced to two

and four a day by the end of May, compared with 40 a day in March.

Phase 1/1: 13 May to 6 June. The "minelayers" now went to work on ports in

northwestern Honshu, even going as far up as Niigata, which the Japs thought was

"too far north" for the B-29s. As a result, the heavy and direct ship routes to the

Asiatic mainland thinned away to almost nothing. At the same time, the B-29s

continued to pollute the Shimonoseki strait. In fact, nearly half of all minesdropped during "Starvation" were earmarked for this bottleneck area.

Phase IV: 7 June to 8 July. Intensified mining of Northwestern Honshu and

Kyushu ports maintained the blockade. The great port system of Kobe-Osaka was

also mined repeatedly. as these ports were offering repair facilities to wounded

Jap shipping which was constantly attempting to limp through the Inland sea.

Phase V: 9 July to 15 August. To complete the blockade, mines were dropped

again on major harbors of Northwest Honshu and Kyushu, and as a final touch

the B-29s mined Fusan, on Korea's southern tip, and other Korean ports. On 6

August only 15,000 tons of operational shipping were photographed at Fusan,

whereas over 100,000 tons had been spotted there a few months earlier. Ship

losses for Phase V were estimated to be in excess of 300,000 tons. Only a trickle of

traffic still Aowed from the continent to Japan. Al l raw material shipment had

ceased, and the shipment of food was on ly a fraction of that required.

As for the aircraft score, a total of 1,528 B-29s were airborne to lay 12,053

mines in the targets-with the loss of 15 aircraft . In a unique operation, demand·

ing the utmost precision and navigational skill, the 313th Wing of the XXI

Bomber Command, and particularly its 505th Group, had made possible

the first strategic mining blockade in military history. Admiral Nimitz cab led to

General Le May: "The continued effectiveness of mining is a source of gratitude.

The planning and operational execution of aircraft mining on a scale never before

attained has accomplished phenomenal results and is a credit to all concerned.

Before milling most cargo (thick

line) went through Shimonoseki,

little (dotted lines) to west coast.

After first phase traffic in Shimono

seki shrank. Red areas in maps show

mines laid in phase discussed.

The close-in blockade of Jap

(above) started when Subs and som

After· second phase traffic almost

stopped in Shimonoseki, Inland sea,

grew on the west coast (thin lines).



es vi rtually severed di rect routes (black arrows) to east

ast centers . Then mi ning, wi th some help from direct ai r

attack, clogged Shimonoseki, th e Inland sea (Kure, Kobe,

o aka) and west co ast ports such as Matsue, Toyama, Niigata.

After third phase. Minin g of west

coast ports cut a ctivity th ere. Shimono

seki . Inland sea continu ed blockad ed.

After fourth phase. Intensification

of mining campaign cut flow still fur

th er. Korean ports we re now vital.

After fifth phase. All-out mmmg

effort included Korean ports, reduced

imports to tin y and haphazal1d trickle.

51



Part 5THE B·2gersPrologue: Mission to Y " W " t " ~ ? Aug. 1945

The briefing began on 7 August at a half hour before mid

night. Five minutes ahead of time the B-29 crews of the

498th Group crowded into the big tin hut with its barrel-vault

roof which was their headquarters on Saipan. Most of them

wore one-piece flying suits, ready for the takeof f. Except for

something in their suntanned faces, sharpened rather than

hardened by combat, you would take them for an y group of

college freshmen with a few upper classmen thrown in.

They sat on long rows of backless wooden benches.

the front rows sat the airplane com-

In

It was the last target to be hit by a massive force, composed

of several wings. Actually, the phase was over six weeks

earlier when the 20th Air Force wound up its enormous 500-

plane attacks on single industrial areas like Tokyo, Nagoya

and Osaka. Since then the wings had been split up for the

highly effective "night burn jobs" on Japan's smaller centers

of industry. Yawata, then, was leftover business. Planned asa daylight mission requiring visual bombing, it had been

scheduled for two months, postponed again an d again

because of poor weather.

manders, who maybe looked a little

older. To them, as if they were special

elders of the church, were handed the

target folders for the mission, bound in

black-like hymn books. On the front

wall were posted huge maps, charts, and

other statistics pertaining to the mission.

Only a half hour earlier the Group Intelli

gence staff had been climbing ladders,

hurrying to paste up these maps, marking

routes and figures with colored crayons.As everyone had been instructed, the

target was to be the Empire's largest steel

center, Yawata, the Pittsburgh of Japan.

In this prologue to the story of

how the B·2gers lived and fought,

Captain Tom Prideaux, IMPACT's

Pacific edi tor, tells about the 7

August mission to Yawata, on

which he flew with the crew of

No. 11 , 498th Group. Following

the prologue, which gets No. 11

started on the way, Captain

Prideaux describes the principalaspects of B·29 operations. His

epi logue, or conclusion, picks up

No. 11 again and takes it to

Yawata and back home.-EoIToR

To most of the crews Yawata had

become somewhat of a bugbear. It was

expected that the steel plant would be

heavily defended, particularly by anti

aircraft. Losses during the past six weeks

had been phenomenall y low. Crews had

begun to take these night incendiary mis

sions almost casually. But now they were

returning to the rugged days of old, or so

they thought. They recalled the fierce

opposition at Tokyo and Nagoya . Nobody felt very casual about Yawata .

The briefing that was about to slart

in one hut on Saipan would be repeated

11 times that night. For there weren some ways Yawata was a milestone.

A little over a year ago, on 15 June 1944,

Yawata had been the target for the first historic B-29 attack

on the Japanese homeland. Out of 68 planes that had taken

off from the staging base at Chengtu, in China, only 47 hit the

primary target. Five planes were lost, all because of opera-

tional failures. Damage to the target was slight. Those were

the days when some men questioned whether the B-29 would

justify its existence. Now, a year later, the question was

answered, an d in a few days the war would be ended. In

that one intervening year the whole extraordinary success

story of the B-29 had been wriHen, and by chance Yawata

was part of its prologue and epilogue.

While Yawata deserves no special prominence as a mission,

it also marked the end of a major phase of B-29 operations.

"Mae Wests checked . . . flak suits aboard?" asks Super-

fort commander during final inspection of his crew before

takeoff from Guam on the "Hirohito Highway" to Japan.

separate briefings for each of the four

groups in each of the three wings taking part: the 73rd Wing

on Saipan, the 58th an d 313th Wings on Tinian. This was

routine procedure, of course, if the word "routine" can be

applied to any procedure that brings some 3,000 young

American flyers together at midnight on two remote islands in

the South Pacific to scan maps, to study winds an d clouds,

to pilot many thousand tons of machinery against a swarm

of hostile islanders.First to address the 498th Group was its commanding officer,

who announced the target. Next was the operations officer

who told the size of the effort (three wings, or about 400

B-29s). Then the intelligence officer, pointing to the big aerial

map on the wall, described the importance of the industrial

complex at Yawata . In turn, he described the 3,000-mile

roule to an d from the target, check points, assembly poinl,

aiming points, flak situation (moderate to intense over larget),

enemy fighters (45 enemy aircraft might be airborne).




Squalling in their dispersal area at North field , Guam, are planes of the 29th

Bomb Group, 314th Wing. This view, looking east, shows part of the southwestern

area of the diagram below. The 19th B.G.'s B·29s are located in the background.

NORTH RUNWAY

SOUTH RUNWAY

TAKEOFF METHODSTruly the "Miracle of the Marianas"

was the ground traffic direction control

sy tern used at the start of a B·29 mis·

sion to Japan. The diagram above

shows how one wing at North field ,

Guam, took off on a typical " ight

Burn Job." Each group appears at

normal strength of 33 planes, plu two

spares. By the war's end the maximum



SOUTH SErtlC[ APRON

11___11___-----32C 110 IJw'T

group strength averaged well over 40.

At Zero hour plus one minute Wingleader in No. 1 of the 39th Bomb

Group (A) is airborne at the end of

the orth runway while No. 1 of the

29th E.G. is halfway down South run

way, 30 seconds behind. Others are al l

lined up ready to go on signal from a

green Aldis lamp. One by one, the rest

move out on exact schedule from their

hardstands and taxi into position (fol

low red arrows). Vacant stands are

occupied by planes either unassigned

orin repair- Uncompleted

areas are

shown in gray, outlined in white.

At left (opposite page) is the day

time takeoff procedure for one group.

This differed from the night system

on Iy in that each group used both run

ways to speed up assembly into forma

tion . Here the 29th Group, third to

take off after the 19th and 39th, flies

32 planes, which are divided into two

sections, North (N) and South (S).

As soon as the first planes have been

given the gun (againat

30-second interval), 8 N taxis over behind 7 N

while 2 S slides down the South run

way into starting position. This con

tinues until alJ the N planes are lined

up . Then the backlog of seven S

planes takes position. Fo r clarity all

Superforts are shown out on the taxi

strips; in actuality the last 16 would

still be dispersed on their hardstands

at the time the group leader takes off.

55



56

Cowling inspections we re la bo rious routine fo r g round

crewmen who frequentl ), mad e engine chan ges overni ght.

Co ntinued Irom page 53

The weather officer briefed next (4/10 clouds at target;

showers between target and base). Then the operations officer

spoke again, giving the assembly procedure (near Iwo Jima),

bombing altitude (21,000 feet), an d types of bombs (SaO-pound

incendiary clusters; average of 24 clusters per bomber).

Bombs would be dropped at a signal given by the squadron

leader or his deputy. Tight formations were vital. How to

avoid the guns at Shimonoseki was stressed, along with orders

when to jam the enemy's radar.Altogether the group briefing took about a half hour. Then

the crews broke up for separate, more detailed briefings for

the airplane commanders, flight engineers, radio operators,

gunners, an d radar teams, which included navigators an d

bombardiers.

With a few minutes to spare for themselves, many crews

went to their own barracks where some men, not flying the

mission, were asleep. In the dim light they picked up their

personal gear, stuffed a book or candy bar in their pockets,

went to the latrine, and, in one case, said goodbye to Yaki,

a frisky yellow pu p of Japanese ancestry who had been

acquired from a local laundress. Yaki, a shameless turncoat

wanted desperately to fly the mission, and had to be coaxed

back into the barracks with blandishments an d threats.

About 0100 the crews went to the mess hall for scrambled

eggs, home fried potatoes, tomato juice, bread and butter,

canned fruit cocktail. They then jumped onto the trucks that

were waiting outside to carry them to their own planes on the

hardstands of Isely field . For a moment, when the trucks began

to chug up the bumpy coral road, their headlights smothered

in dust, there was on outburst of talk. On e boy called back

to his fat friend, "Hi, bulbous one." Then everybody was quiet.

Up on the hardstands the show was going full blast. The

big planes glistened under a battery of work lights. Electric

power plants rattled an d roared. Ground crews scrambled

Superforl armorer concentrates hard on his precise job of

placing a fuze into the tail of a SOO· lb. demolition bomb.

up the portable scaffolds to reach the enormous engines.

Every crevice, every crack in the planes' anatomy were being

probed. With their own peculiar set of surgical instruments,

the crews were tightening and testing nerves and tendons,

making sure they could stand the strain of combat, making

sure that the vital fluids ran smoothly through the metallic

veins. One carrot-topped mechanic cut his head on the sharp

corner of a cowl flop. Somebody held a flashlight to the

wound. A little blood seeped through the red hair . It wasn' t

much of a cut.

On one hardstand rested a new plane, still unnamed, and

known only as "No. 11." Bombs were being towed toward

her on a string of dollies. Each dolly carried a bomb . One

by one, the dollies were rolled under the open bomb boys,

an d a single strand of copper wire was looped under the

bomb. This wire was attached to a lifting mechanism inside

the plane which hoisted the SaO-pound bomb high into its

gaping belly. As it rose, the bomb teetered on its wire, was

steadied by a calm hand, and finally latched into place.

Meanwhile the crew ho d stowed their chutes, Moe Wests ,

canteens, oxygen masks, an d other equipment into No . 11.

It was only a half hour before takeoff when on officer rolled

up in a jeep. He announced that the entire crew was scratched,

token of f the mission. It seemed that over on a nearby

hardstand engine trouble had developed in a plane that was

to be flown by a squadron lead crew. The plane itself couldn't

be flown, but the experienced lead crew was needed . They

would fly No. 11. So the original crew hauled their belong

ings back out. They were not unhappy about it.

The ne w crew was commanded by round-faced, sandy

haired Captain George Criss of West Point. He wore a dark

red crew hat with his two bars pinned in front. Jaunty as it

was, it didn't make Criss seem an y less calm and reliable.

B-29s were already turning clumsily out of their hardstands

and lining up on the taxi strip for the takeo ff. Beams from



"Walking th e props" through is the mechanics' last task

before engines are star ted. Excess oi l is flu shed this way.

their landing lights slashed through clouds of dust. More an d

more motors began to howl. In No. 11, the 11 crew members

had taken possession. Sergeant "Red" Edwards, the radar

operator from Cleveland Heights, felt in his pocket for his

lucky silver dollar. He had bored a small hole in it for every

mission he had flown. There were 33 holes. Sergeant Martin

Rosenberg, once a night club head waiter in Philadelphia,

took out a photograph of his pretty wife, Clarice, and hung

it above his radio table . Rosey always took Clarice to Japan.

Only once he forgot her. Fifteen minutes before takeoff he

had told Captain Criss about it. The Captain ordered him to

take a jeep back to his barracks an d pick up Clarice. Now,

Yawata would be "Rosey's" 35th mission and he was due togo home to his wife.

The story of a B-29 taking off might well be a story of

closing doors .

With his crew in place, and engines started, Captain Criss

gave the order over his interphone to Flight Engineer Lt. Fizer.

"Close bomb bay doors."

Fizer pushed a switch, and on No. 11's under belly four

metal doors swung up an d joined. By this ritual, the plane

had, as it were, accepted its cargo of bombs, an d committed

itself to delivering them over the target .

"Doors and hatches closed."

These had been left open as long as possible so that an y

gases could escape, generated inside the plane by the

auxiliary motor which operated the landing gear. This closing

of doors was a simple job, done by hand. At the same time,

Captain Criss and his co-pilot, Lt. Hugh Sherrill, reached up

and slid shut the windows over the pilots' seats. The night

wind was expelled, an d with it the smell of land.

Then No . 11 taxied almost to the starting point. As the

plane ahead of it 'shot down the runway, No. 11 edged up

to the white starting line . Now the plane ahead was airborne.

"Clear on the left!" shouts the commander just before he

starts his engines. Signal warns anyone close to the props.

The flagman, who stood about 30 feet from the whirring

propellers, raised his hand . This signal meant that Captain

Criss must begin to roll in 10 seconds. He pushed the throttles.

Still stationary, the plane shuddered as if in one supreme

effort it were mustering its strength to forsake the earth. The

flagman's hand dropped. No. 11 surged forward, and

Captain Criss gave another order.

"Cowl flaps closed."

Now the small square ventilator flaps that are hinged

around the engines, like petals on some monstrous flower,

closed up. This third closing of doors streamlined the ~ n g i n e s , made them less wind-resistant.

To many crews, the 40-second trip down the runway is thelongest leg of a mission. They sweat it out, mentally and

literally. All power from all four engines is usually needed to

lift some 137,000 pounds of airplane into the air. If one

engine conks out before you are airborne, it is too late to

stop . You probably crash. No . 11, however, cleared the

runway easily, and Captain Criss gave the last order.

"Gear up."

The co-pilot snapped another switch. The nos e wheel with

drew into its well, the left and right landing gears folded up,

an d three more doors closed under them. The airplane had

finally renounced all connection with the earth. It was trimmed

for flight. It rocketed off into a sky filled with moving lights.

But they looked as small and remote as the stars.

On No. 11, heading toward Iwo Jima, the right gunner,

Tom Gore, Jr., from Tennessee, crawls into the long padded

tunnel that connects the two pressurized compartments, and

snatches an hour's sleep. His sleep is fairly peaceful because

he knows that he stands an excellent chance of surviving this,

or any, mission, an d going home to run his own farm. This

tremendously important fact involves all the history records

an d tactical doctrines of B-29 operations. They are the answer

to the question: Why can Tom Gore sleep?

Co ntinued on next page

57



Operat ional Growing Pains; Mission Pla,. , . i , .g

Behind every combat mission flown by the B-29s lay an

incredible amount of training, plannin g, sweat, sacrifice,

and guts. This informal report touches only a few random

details of the story. I f they jostle together incongruously

a general's courageous decision next to a sergeant's silverdollar-it can only be pointed out, perhaps platitudinously,

that life itself i incongruous and final values are seldom

known.

The history of B-29 operations in the Pacific can be dated

from the arrival of the first bomber, an event which a cor

poral in an air service group celebrated in a lengthy ballad.

It began:

THE FIRST B-29

On the thirteenth of October back in nineteen forty-four

The citizens of Saipan heard a great four-motor roar.

Bulldozers fled the runway, and soldiers stopped to cheer

As down came "Joltin' Josie-the Pa cific Pioneer."

And all the Japs s till lurking in th e cane fields and the cavesPeered out in fear, and ghosts of J aps were peering from

their graves.

Their plans for co-prosperi ty they knew th ey'd have to cancel

As out of "Joltin' Josie" bounded General Haywood Han sell.

In stanzas that are somewhat less flowing, but historically

accurate, the corporal told how the first ai r service groups

had moved in two months earlier, built roads out of crushed

coral, hauled supplies, set up maintenance equipment on the

line "to be ready for the coming of the first 8-29." In full

detail he designated Brigadier General Hansell as the com

mander of the XXI Bomber Command, told of th e long train-

Journey's end for this ostrich-like Superfort was in shallow

water off the runway at Isely field , Saipan, on 27 Feb.

in g period in high-altitude fl yin g over th e plains of Kan sas,

the six shakedown miss ions over Truk and I wo , the three

famou s recon missions of Tokyo Rose, and ended up with

the first Tokyo attack on 24 Dece mber when 111 B-29s at

Isel y Field, Saipan, took off on the 1,SOO-mile-Iong "Hirohito Highway" to bomb the Musashino aircraft engine plant.

Whether his muse ran dry, or whether he felt the subject

un suited to verse, the co rporal did not, at any rate, go on

to li st the countless problems that beset this pi-oneer wing.

And the No. 1 problem was weathel'. Japanese weather

showed its hand right from th e start. On the first Tokyo

mission only seven percent of the bombs were dropped on

lh e ta rget, due to heavy cloud cover. (Radar was an invalu

able aid to navi gation, but it could not at that time insure

precision from high altiudes.) During the first two and

a half months that the 73rd Wing, commanded by General

O'Donnell, carried on alone, its bombing results were fa r

f rom decisive. But this was a period of courage and daunt

less perseverance, when problems were discovered, diagnosed, and solved, a period as essential to the ultimate suc

cess of the 20th Air Force as a firm foundation is to a fort.

Indicative of the 73rd Wing's fighting spirit is the fact

that in ten days, starting with its debut over Tokyo, the

Jap capital was walloped four times- and this despite the

haza rds of blazing a new ai r route, flying a new and not

fu II y perfec ted type of aircraf t. Once it had started, the

Buddy stands by to guard this crippled 29 from fighter .

attacks and escor t it back to a safe landing at Iwo Jima.

With its gross weight of 137,000 pounds, a B-29 is tough to

handle on takeoff if an engine co nks out , as it did here.




B-2gers continued

Wing kept punching to the limit of its strength.

The Japs struck back. Shortly after midnight, 27 Novem·

her, when the B·298 were lined up on Saipan's runway to

launch at dawn their second Tokyo strike, Jap raider

sneaked in to bomb and strafe the base. One B-29 received a

direct hit. It exploded and damaged other aircraft on

adjacent hardstands. But the mission was run as scheduled.Radio Tokyo was broadca ting threats of Kamikaze ram

ming. These seldom materialized, but they were a source

of some anxiety to our crews. Jap fighters appeared to be

bamboozled by the high speed and heavy armament of the

B-29. Almost all of thei r effective attacks were head-on. At

high altitudes, they didn't have enough speed differential to

attack from any other quarter. And even in head-on attacks,

with a closing speed of more than 500 miles an hour, the

B·29 could usually dodge its attackers by a quick flip of the

wing.

Jap fighters found they could do better by waiting until

so me B-29, crippled by flak, lagged behind its formation,

and then, like vultures pouncing on wounded prey, chase it

50 or 100 miles out to sea. In most cases, though, the B-29

got away.

This policy of attacking stragglers continued throughout

the war. It was counteracted .by our "Buddy System," in

which one B-29 would fall out of formation to defend the

crippled plane, and, if it had to ditch, circle above the

60

urvivors, dropping life rafts and directing air-sea rescue

units to the scene. Sometimes an entire formation would

slow up in order that a limping B-29 could keep pace.

Fighter attacks, however, grew more and more fierce, and

accounted fo r most of our losses over the target. (At very

high altitudes flak was generally too inaccurate to be effec

tive.) During the first five high-altitude strikes (28,000 to

~ 3 , 0 0 0 feet) on the Mitsubishi aircraft plant at northNagoya, the 13-29s were met by a total of 1,731 fighter at

tacks. Our gunners shot down 48, probably destroyed 50

others. And on the Wing's 14th strike against the Jap home

land on 27 January, "fighter opposition of unparalleled in

tensity was met." Combat reports go on to tell how

"fanatical hopped-up pilots pressed their attacks right down

the formations' stream of fire, dove into formations to

attempt rammings, and sprayed fire at random." Five

B-29s went down over the target . Two ditched on the way

home, and 33 returned with battle scars. In turn, the B-29s

on this same mission destroyed 60 Jap fighters.

"Fuji in '44" became the name of a select group of air

men who had used the famous Japanese mountain as a check

point. Pictures of B-29 formations against snow-cappedFuji appeared as often in the Marianas as pictures of

Niagara Falls in oldtime parlors.

Greatest hindrance to bombing accuracy was the high

winds over the target. At 30,000 feet, high wind velocities up

to 230 mph were met, causing ground speeds as high as 550

mph when bombing downwind. These velocities were fa r

beyond the maximum provided fo r in the AAF bombing

tables. Moreover, the crews were often subjected to extreme

cold when the pressurizing system in their planes was

knocked out by enemy fire. This gave rise to a grim quip

having to do with a remedy fo r fleas. "Take your fleas with

you over Japan, and sta,b them with an ice pick."

But by now one fact was clear: the B-29 could take it. It

had come through its baptism of fire, had felt the full force

of Jap fury and Jap weather. It was a superb combat

weapon.

Ry now it was clear to any ohserver that the trategy for

hombing Japan would follow much the same pattern as ill

Germany. And this was to bomb aircraft production fi rst.

As set forth in FM 100-20 on the Command and Employment

of Air Power, "The gaining of air superiority is the first

requirement for the success of any major land operation."

Before any priority targets were selected, however, intelligence material was culled from every conceivable source.

In marked contrast to the European theater, where U. S.

target specialists could benefit from British intelligence and

where the Germans themselves, with their zeal for docu

mentation, had published volumes of facts and figures about

their resources, wartime Japan was virtually terra incognita.

Planning war for many years, the naturally secretive Jap.

anese had taken extra pains that their plans should not be

known. In one of history's greatest fact hunts, information

had to be pieced together from reports made by missionaries, commercial travelers, former residents of Japan, U. S.

engineers who had been hired to build Jap plants, even from

napshots taken by American summer tourists. Added to

this were the fi rst reconnaissance photos taken back in the

sp ring of 1944 by 20th Air Force pilots whose daring China

based photo missions, flown by single B-29s deep into enemy

territory, were among the war's most heroic deeds.

Starting with this remarkable compendium, much of it

still valid, two committees met in Washington: the Com

mittee of Operational Analysts and the Joint Target Com

mittee. They compiled a list of 1,000 precision objectives.

From this the Joint Chiefs of Staff picked out Jap aircraft

production, the coke, steel, and oil industries, shipping, andthe Japanese industrial urban areas as major targets. The

final priority list was drawn up by the C.O.A. in this order:

(1) aircraft industry, (2) urban industrial areas, (3) ship

ping. A broad directive was issued to the XXI Bomber

Command, saying in effect, "Here are the types of targets.

Now the job is up to you."

To transmute a general Washington directive into specific

orders fo r individual bomb crews in the Marianas required

still a vast amount of work. In rough outline, this is what

happened:

The job was assigned to target specia lists of the Bomber

Command's A-2 (Intelligence), cooperating closely with A-3

(Operations). Their most crucial need was for detailed,

up-to-date facts about specific targets and the routes thereto.These had to be obtained largely from aerial photos. Start

ing in November, 1944, and operating out of the Marianas,

the 3rd Photo Squadron ran almost daily missions to Japan,

flying B-29s modified for camera equipment. Guns, incident

ally, were not sacrificed . By 1 August, the Squadron had

completed 433 such missions and had photographed literally

every square mile of Japan. Here were the eyes of the

B-2gers-the advance echelon of eyes.

Once the film was printed the PIs (photographic inter

preters) got busy. They scrutinized each print through

magnifying glasses, s p o t ~ e d enemy defenses, landmarks,

analyzed targets, even estimated what kind of building




Twin-engined Japanese fighter (Nick) scuttles by a Superfort's wing (lop center) during a head-on attack.

One wing gone, a 29 hurtles down in flames after a direct

Aak hit. Over 40% of all 10 ses occurred in the Tokyo area.

Another victim of accurate Jap flak was this B-29, blown

almost to bits during its bomb run near Nagoya on 26 June.

6



62

B-2gers continued

materials were used so that the bomb experts would know

what type of bombs could do most damage.

Armed with such data, the A-2 and A·3 men at Head·

quarters then proceeded to layou t specific missions.

The technique of planning a mission evolved with prac·

tice. Eventually, a planning meeting was devised, an in·

formal round·table gathering of veteran operations officers.

along with pecialist on targets, navigation, weather, enemyfighters and antiaircraft defenses, radar, radio, armament.

ordnance. and chemical warfare. Pure theory was not repre

sented. These were men who from first-hand flying experi

ence "knew what the hell it was all about."

Together Lhey drew up a kind of blue print for each mis

sion_ It told the force required, bomb loads, routes and alti

tudes to and from the target, navigational check points_

aiming points, axis and altitude of attack. These missions

were then submitted to the commanding general fo r his ap

proval, and wrapped up fo r future use.

Immediately, however, each complete "b lue print" was

sent to the A-2 at each wing headquarters. Called a frag

mentary plan, it was a Lip-off, a forewarning of what mis

sions might be coming up, any time from three days to three

week. Several frag plans might be submi tted at one time.

Thanks to this advance warning, the wing A-2s could

assemble most of the data fo r a mission-maps, charts, and

so on-and keep them on file until more specific orders were

issued. This system al 0 enabled the wings to recommend

target studies, based on the f rag plan, fo r their own re-

pective bomber groups. In other words, it enab led the air

plane crews to do homework on possible future targets, in

stead of depending entirely on th e final briefings.

Headquarters staff also benefited by the system. They

were not committed fa r in advance to bomb any single

target. They could cut their cloth according to last-minute

requirement. Had they been committed and, for example,had the target been "socked in" by bad weather, it would

have meant sitting idle until the weather improved. Now

there were alternate targets to pick from, and the entire ai r

force was ready to roll on anyone of them.

Final orders from the XXI Bomber Command were issued

by the commanding general in two installments.

(1) Intentions, usually one or two days ahead of a mis

sion, clinched the target, authorized the wings to have their

groups prepare al l material for briefings, and to haul bombs.

(2) Firm Decision, 12 to 24 hours ahead of a mission,

was issued to the wing after the final weather forecast. It

usually included the date and hour of takeoff, and gave

authorization to load bombs. All this was passed on to thegroups.

Each wing issued its own field orders, which included the

order of takeoff for each group. The group A-3 then pre

pared a schedule, known as a flimsy, which was handed to

every airplane commander, stating the exact time and order

of takeoff fo r each individual aircraft within the group.

Thus each pilot, with his briefing and target study in

mind, and with his target folder and flimsy in hand, was

ready to bomb Japan , backed up by the knowledge and ex

perience of many thousand men. In the deepest sense, the

11 crewmen in a B-29 did not fly alone.

Fast game of medicine ball on the beach at Saipan was tonic

r r Gen. Hansell (second at left ), first CO of the XX I B.C.

Good for morale were these officers vs. en listed men ball

games. Above, Cpl. P. F. Murphy lays down a neat bunt.

Pfe. Reese L. Bybee (left ) upheld honor of the AAF on

Saipan by out-pointing Sailor Bob Robinson in a close bout.



Saipan Country Club featured high-class tennis matches

for B-29 crewmen who wanted to forget the war for a spell.

Swea ting o ut takeofI time of a mission wasn't so tough for

Superfort crews when they could play some quiet poker.

Boomtoml': Hom the Marianas W ere Am ericanized

Gen . Arnold talks shop tvith8-29 cretv chw!, S / Sgt. Fliess.

Meanwhile, a pattern of

living had begun to take

form and with minor vari

ations repeated itself on

all three islands: Saipan,

Guam, Tinian. The bat

tered remnants of Jap

anese occupation were

pushed aside. The Age

of the Bu IIdozer had

dawned. Seabees and avi

ation engineers pitched

their pup tents in the

mornin g near some clump

of tree for a landmark,

and at nightfall they

couldn' t find their way

home. The landmark was

gone. The bulldozers had

been around. Acres of jungle were uprooted in a few hours,

making way fo r new ai r trips and bivouac areas. What

once looked like a tropical paradise on a tinted postcard

took on the character of al l American pioneer settlement -

shanty towns, lumber camps, gold rush towns.

The winter of 1944·'45 was a season of mud or dust.

When the ground echelons of the 314th Bomb Group arrived

at Guam on 18 January, they hacked a site out of the jungle,

and in the evenings drove eight miles to Harmon field for

a hower, and were dust-covered again by the time they got

home. Men working on the runway at North field set up

their cots on the sidelines and rigged up pup tents on top

of the cots. On more than one morning they woke up after a

heavy rain to find that the water around them was cot-high,

and the pup tents presented the rather miraculous appear·ance of being pitched on the surface of a lake.

Japs were sti II around but they were more of a nuisance

than a menace. The 314th Wing had it own private banshee,

presumably a Jap , wbo yowled hideous ly out of the jungle

about three o'clock every morning for a week, and was never

caught. It was not restful. One of the Wing's ai r service

groups, which bad pitched its camp on the edge of the jungle,

was so unnerved by the sights and sounds of prowling Japs

that at night they arranged their vehicles in a big emi -

circle and directed al l their head lights into the wilderness.

The Japs threw stones at tbe headlights.

The home-making instinct burgeoned. Over on Tinian,

where the 313th Group flew its fir t mission on 4 February.

officers were seen triumphantly bearing a cracked little

wooden box they had discovered in the canefields. It wouldbe used in their tents for a shelf, table, chair, bureau, or bar.

On Guam some men tried to grow tomato plants, but there

were no bees to pollinate the blossoms. One moonlight night

a general's aide was seen transferring pollen from blossom

to blossom on the end of a pipe cleaner. Growing vegetables

on Saipan was forbidden fo r a while because the soil was

declared unhealthy. But there was no ban on flower. One

airplane commander beautified the front yard of his Quonset

home with a picket fence, morning glories, dahlias. sun

flowers, sweet peas, and Burpee's Giant Zinnias (zinnias

grew in the Marianas far beyond the dreams of Burpee).

Rats were rampant. A big de-ratting contest wa held by

tbe residents of several Quonsets on Saipan. For every ra t

shot dead, a ra t was painted above the front ·door. For a

wounded ra t that got away, half a ra t was painted up, and

listed as "a probable." At the end of two weeks, the men in

the winning Quonset were given a beer party by the losers.

Whiskey was common currency. A Jap Samurai sword, in

the open souvenir market, could be bought with three to nine

quarts of Old Grand-Dad. Open-ai r movie theaters sprouted

in the jungles and on hillsides like the amphitheatres of

ancient Greece. Many audiences sat on rows of bomb crates.

Church services were held, outdoors, in tents, and finally in

real churches, which were usually Quonset with a bunty

little steeple stuck on top. But the spire pointed heaven·

ward. Baseball fields, basketball and squash courts were

built, and used whenever possible. Music was everywherein the Marianas . Radios were forever blaring A Little on the

Lonely Side.

Galleries of pin-up girls appeared on the walls and ceil

ings of shacks, tents, airplanes. Family snapshots were near

every bed. Of al l the four-letter words current in the Army,

" home" was the most popular. Cooks mixed chocolate

custard in the big plexiglas blisters from wrecked B-29s. A

general at a staff meeting blew off because his post's ice

cream freezer was too long out of order.


6



B-2gers continued

Such details, insignificant in th emse lves, were al l evidence

of the Army's effort to keep al ert, to mak e the best of poor

living conditions so that th e big job could be done.

By April Guam's Route No.1 became what is practically

th e symbol of America: a straight paved road, lined with

telephone poles, and jammed with traffic. You felt that

such a highway must lead to a bi g city. The road had other

plans. Riding northward on Route No. 1, you came to a rise,

and th en suddenly it was spread out before you: North field

'with its two 8,500·foot runways, its miles of taxi strips and

hardstands, covered by a sea of B·29s, their rows of wings

shining in the sun, their tai I rudders arching up like surf.

It wa s a sati sfyin g way for one highway to end- and another

to begin.

An ai r war has some peculiar characteristics, which are

doubly felt when it is waged from island bases, 1,500 miles

from the main ta rgets. A la rge part of the war existed in

men's minds. Day by da y, there was little evidence of combat

or violence; and when it came it was shortlived, except in

men's memories. A B-29 has engine trouble on takeoff,

cannot gain altitude, and crashes into the sea with an appall in g geyser of Aam e. In one moment it is gone , while men

on th e shore watch helplessly. A B-29 comes back to Tinian

af ter a mission with three engines shot out- the last one had

fail ed 50 miles from base. Th e pilot has radioed ahead.

Ambulances and fire trucks are waiting to meet him, if he

makes it. The suspense exi sts in hundreds of minds. Miracu

lously, th e pilot does make it. And after that, it is some

thin g to tell about, to remember.

A takeoff at North field is scheduled fo r 1900 (7 p.m. ) .

It is a maximum effort job, involving all four groups of one

wing, or about 140 planes. Ground crews, officers, enli sted

men line up on the mounds of coral along both runways .

Two by two, the planes begin to take off, slowl y at first as

if they could never raise their tremendous bulk. As each

set of wheels finally leaves the ground , each man feels a

sense of relief. In less than an hour , the entire group is

airborne. Tail lights dwindle into th e clouds and th e last

planes are out of sight. Not out of mind.

Sweating out a miss ion is an Air Force rite. Different men

do it in different ways, some by playing poker, or waiting

for radio reports, or trying to slee p and forget. But nobody

quite forgets. A ground crew member who is charged with

keepin g a certain No. 3 engin e in perfect condition, and has

named it after his wife, is sweating out all 18 cylinders of

No. 3. A colonel who briefed a group on enemy fighter op·

position wonders whether his briefin g wi II save or co st lives.

Not al l sweating is done on the ground. The crews in the air

are thinking ah ead about the few moments over th e ta rget.

A bomber outfit is fu II of thinkers.

So seldom do these inner emotions produce any outer

evidence, that when they do it is worth noting. There wa s

one ta rget known as "Old 357," or "General O'Donnell'sPet Little Target." It was th e important Nakajima aircraft

plant near Tok yo. To destro y it became the special job of

the 73rd Wing on Saipan , and the target seemed to be jinxed.

They bombed it on 13 different missions, at a cost of 58

planes. On the nights before th e la ter miss ions were run

to Old 357, the barracks wh ere th e crew members slept were

qui et and dark as usual. Th ere was onl y the meagerest evi

dence of what wa s going on in th eir minds, while they took

the bomb run over and over again , while they weighed thei r

chances of livin g or dying. It was a row of cigarettes g lo w

ing in the dark.

l U ) o ~ B-29 Haven and Fighter Spri,.gboa,ed

64

To every B-29 crew who Aew to Japan after March, the

fact that Iwo Jima had become a U. S. base wa s a cause for

thanksgiving. 1wo is eight mil es long-a very little island.

But never did so little mean as much to so many. Located

about midway between Guam and Japan , Iwo broke the long

stretch, both goin g and coming. I f you had engine trouble,

you held out for Iwo. I f you were shot up over Japan and

had wounded aboard, you held out for Iwo . I f the weather

was too rough, you held out fo r Iwo. Formations assembled

ov er Iwo, and gassed up at Iwo fo r extra long mission s. I fyou needed fighter escort, it usually came from Iwo. If you

had to ditch or bailout , you knew that ai r-sea rescue units

were sent fr om I woo Even if you never used 1wo as anemergency base, it was a psychological benefit. It was th ere

to fall back on.

From 4 March, wh en the first crippled B-29 landed there,

to the end of th e war 2,251 Superforts landed at Iwoo A

la rge number of th ese would have been lost if 1wo had not

been available. Each of th e B-29s carried 11 crewm en, a

total of 24,761 men. It cost 4,SOO dead , ] 5,800 wounded,

and 400 missing to take th e is land, a terrifi c price for the

Navy and Marines to pa y, but one for which every man who

served with th e 20th Air Force and VII Fighter Command

is eterna 1 y g rateful.

Iwo started with a crud e dirt runway that barely ac-

commodated the first Superfort, which wa s refu eled by gaso

line carried in the helmets of marine . At war's end, it had

an elaborate system of black·top run ways, gas pumps and

machinery which could handl e scores of B-29s.

This is where Major Charl es A. (Rocky) Stone came

in . They called him chief of B-29 maintenan ce but it was

easier to see him as the operator of " Rocky's Wa ys ide Serv

ice Station," the most important drop-in-and-fix-it station in

th e world. Rocky is an ex-n avi gator who got his Iwo job

by telling a colonel in th e States, " Si r, I think your mainte·

nan ce section stinks." A produce trucker from California,

Ro cky, with his square, stubbl e-bearded face und er a bill ed

cap and a hunk of tobacco a lw ays clamped in his ja w,looked the part of a big. ime shop foreman. Th e story o f hi s

Iwo works is well told by an officer who visited th ere ear l y

in July during the period of night fire missions :

" At 3 :30 a.m . Rocky is up , waitin g in greasy khaki s on th e

line. There is nothin g in th e sky yet, not a light or sound ,

except th e sof t murmur of th e night wind from th e sea. The

highway through the clouds west of Iwo is empty, but Rocky

and other cap-billed men who huddle by th e runway know

the traffic will come booming down it in a few minutes now,

in the packed, early morning rush back to th e Marianas.

"Th e first airplane light comes out of the north, and

behind it is a second and third. The string of th em begins




Ruggedness of Iwo campaign is symbolized by these skele

tons of Jap planes on the hillside near Motoyama airfield

No _1. A I o r ~ a n i z ( ' d resistanc.(' c.eased on 16 March_ 26 d a y ~

after D-Day, though mopping-up lasted until mid-April.

Marine casualties were high (32.6% of force involved ), but

the ('n('my lost 22'::122 kill('d . Only ~ 9 2 wer(' captured.

65



B-2gers (,()lItilllled

.- .---,.--_ I

---I l " . ~ i ( ' . ~ t plm'(' O I l IIlII/IIl/int: Iwo was th e flight line at Central field after a night mission to Japan. Here th e 2

Major Rocky Stone ( ri ght ) sizes up the repa irs or service

needed and wastes no time getting his ground crew rolling.

"Off with the old, on with the new" might have heen a

slogan for Iwo' mechani cs. shown here l i n g - a prop .



rereived whatever repairs they needed. lw o filling station supplied super-deluxe rapid service to the 8-29s.

Runaway prop flew off. kno cked out th e o. 4 engine and

ripped this hu ge hol e in the fuselage of Superfortress.

Same B-29 as at left cra hed into ano ther battle-damage d

29 at Iwo . Bombardier 's sp rained ankle was the on ly injury.

67



Locked brakes cau sed this Superfort, returning to Iwo

from a Tokyo strike, to ca reen through four P·Sls parked

on Aight line. Two crew members were burned severely.

Men crouched behind jee p to avo id ex pl odin g a mmuniti on.

Though no longer able to power a 8-29, these battle-damaged engines were stripped to provide spare parts.



to move across. They are on the way home. Then one bead

drops ou t of the necklace of lights. The bead wheels down

and away from the rest of the string. Its crew is not happy.

It has troubles. Except fo r Iwo it might have to crash in the

ocean. Rocky watches the plane as it takes shape. He sizes

it up, much as a filling station operator sizes up a car which

leaves the main traffic line and turns in under his shed, or a

round·house foreman sees a locomotive steam in. Expertly

he studies the Superfort on its approach. It is still pitch

dark. The descending B-29 looks more like a platform thanan airplane. It is a tremendous steel platform, weighing

125,000 pounds and flashing with lights. Its landing gears

come down like club feet lowered inquiringly into space.

They grope delicately fo r the more so lid but treacherous

level of the ground. 'Engines are okay,' Rocky says. 'Refue l

job.' Before the plane stops he has it shunted to the refueling

section. No delay. No time wasted. The taxiway is built in a

half circle, and the bomber simply continues around it until

it reaches an area of gas pumps. It is the first in a long line

which will form there. and automatically it is placed first in

line to take off.

"The next plane landing is different . You can see tha t

far out in the sky as it turns to come in. A brownish trail

of smoke hangs out behind it like a thin tail in the lightnow half moonlight, half dawn. One engine is feathered

and still. It stands out looking crippled and sore, like a

broken hand. Crash truck and ambulance drivers tense. The

plane is logy and it waves from side to side as it jockeys

for a straight landing position.

"Rocky Stone. the diagnostician, stands motionless.

'Major cause.' he says. 'We'll put her over the maintenance

mat.' The plane yanks sideways on the landing, but, fortu·

nately for the men on the sideline, stra ightens. Before it has

rolled to a stop_ Rocky's men steer it into the main mainte

nance department where serious overhaulin g is done. The

good engines scarcely jerk to a halt before mechanics begin

tearing out the bad one. anrl a new engine is already on its

way from the shop.

"In a jeep, Rocky rides herd on these monsters that come

pi lin a out of the dawn sky. He drives right up into the

pounding bombardment their propwash beats in the dust.

He and other men in jeeps, sparrows pecking at eagles, peck

and prod them into their right places. There is the feeling

of haste and strain. The big boys have dropped momentarily

out of the race and everyone on Iwo Jima is hurrying to get

them back in it again . No minute can be wasted. Nothing

must delay the continuous hombing of Japan.

"Rocky watched a burning Superfort come in recently.

[t was crabbing in sideways. One wing was in full blaze.

Rocky didn' t move from his place near the runway. The

plane partially landed, partially fell on the strip. Men pil.edout of al l sides of it as it came streaking down the stnp.

"Then Rocky saw something else. The plane wasn't

~ o i n g to stop. It was going to rush off one side of the run·

way and into a line of parked airplanes. He ran along.

side of it in his jeep and signaled to the pilot to stop. Then

suddenly he realized there was no pilot in the plane. The

pilot had scramb led out with the crew, fearing explosion.

"Rocky thought fast. He brought the jeep beneath the

plane's wing. anrl l e a v i n ~ his jeep running. hnrtlerl

into the hot cabin. In the plane-which might have ex·

ploded any moment-he applied the brakes. It stopped just

short of the line of parked airplanes."

In the grand strategy of the Pacific war, Iwo Jima was

expected to serve primarily as a base for fighters escorting

8-29s. As stated above, it served the B-29s even more

importantly . But it did become the base for the VII Fighter

Command, which made combat history in its own right.

Pilots of the VIIth flew some of the longest, toughest mis

sions ever undertaken by a fighter outfit. They had to flyin weather that earned every foul name in the Army's

lexicon of abuse. Ja ck-knifed into the cramped cockpits of

their P-51s, they flew for eight or nine hours over 1,600

miles of sea, for only a few minutes' strafing of enemy air

fields and other targets. "I t wasn't so bad after the first

hour because your legs got numb," said one pilot. "But

when you got home, you didn't feel much like sitting. Youwere raw."

The Mustangs started moving to Iwo early in March. The

first chores were aid on Iwo itself to the still embattled

marines, and neutralizing raids against Jap positions in the

nearby Bonins. As all-around trouble shooters, the P-51s

often found that trouble had evaporated before they had

much cha nce to shoot at it. The expected Jap attacks on Iwo

seldom materialized. In part, this was because the presence

of fighters scared them off and partly because, with the loss

of Iwo and the threatened loss of Okinawa, the Jap decided

to pull in their horns and concentrate on Kamikaze attacks.

On 7 April the Fighter Command began what presumably

was to be its No. 1 assignment. One hundred and eight

P-51s took off to escort B-29s on a daylight mission to

Tokyo, and proved their usefulness at once by shooting

down 21 Jap fighters at a loss of only two P-51s. From

that date until the Jap surrender, ten escort missions were

flown. This rela tively sma ll number was due to the sudden

increase of night incendiary attacks for which no escort

was required.The fighters' real foe, as always, was weather. On 1 June,

as they returned from escorting B-29s on a daylight in-

cendiary attack on Osaka, 24 P-51s were lost in a frontal

area extending from the surface to 23,000 feet, with zero

visibi lit y, heavy rain. snow and icing conditions. What

these planes went through, battered and tossed in a seething

cauldron of black weather. nobody will ever know. Two

more fighters collided and crashed. One pilot from the 14th

Fighter Squadron spent six days in a one-man raft, and was

knocked out of the raft five times by waves. He was finally

picked up by a submarine, which by pure luck happened to

be surfaced. On his fifth day he weathered the typhoon

which ripped the bow off the cruiser Pittsburgh. His only

comment on the ordeal was. -'I just sat there."

On 16 April the Command began its series of sweeps on

Jap ground installations. and for the first time was in

husiness for itself. Altogether. it was able to launch 33

effective strikes, and was going strong when the war ended,

a partner of the much bigger and. of course. more power·

ful Navy carrier ai r forces.

There is no question tha t these attacks hel ped deny the

Japs the use of airfields in the Tokyo-Nagoya·Osaka area,

whi le the Okinawa-based fil!hters did likewise for the


6



70

Waist gunner of escort 8·29 watches a trio of Mustangs flying close· n during a fighter sweep to Japan.

Kyushu·Shikoku area. The Japs were forced to camouflage

their plane under trees. in revetments. in cemeteries. Planes

were parked as fa r as five miles from airfields. which meant

that by the time a plane had been taxied to its field it

engines had become so overheated that it couldn't be flown

for awhile. Thi enforced dispersal complicated the Japmaintenance problem tenfold-and the Japs at best were

never too good at maintenance. From the fighter pilot's

viewpoint, it wa discouraging sometimes to get all the way

to Japan , and not be able to rip into a sitting duck.

" 'ith airfields knocked out. railroads. power houses. fac·

torie , and coa twi e shipping became prime targets of

opportunity.

As a sidelight, it is interesting to note that th e Japs ap·

peared to have no adequate aircraft warn ing facilities. Our

fighters were con tinually ca tchin g Ja ps running for cover.

jumping off bicycles, piling out of trains and tru cks. even

rUllning from tennis cou rts. It became a cou rt martial

offense to strafe civilians and non·military targets such as

isolated houses. si los, hospita ls, school s.

The success of the fighter strikes depended to a large

extent on licking th e naviga tional problem. This involved

a reversal of the standard procedure of fighters escortingbombers, and required that the B·29s be used as escorts.

The tactical unit for the P·SIs was th e group, which con·

sisted of three squadrons of 16 planes each, plus two spares

per squ adron. The fighters took off two at a time, with

IS·second intervals between eac h pai r. and fell into forma·

tion about five miles offshore. then proceeded to the rendez·

vous point at Kita, a pinpoint volcanic island about 40 miles

north. Th ere the group joined three navigational B·29s

which had taken off from Iwo about a half hour ea rlier, and

were circ ling over Kita until the fighters pulled in.

It was th e job of the big planes to lead the little ones



Pointing for Tokyo, P·51s on this mission aren't straying far from the "shepherd" who takes them both ways.

acros the 600-mile stretch of sea to Japan_ giving them the

benefit of their sup erior naviga tional aids. and standing

ready to drop rescue equipment in case a fi ghter was forced

do wn_ Th e lead squadron of th e fi ghter g roup fl ew about a

quarter of a mile behind the B-29s_ and other formation s

followed close after.

Th us chaperoned, the fi ghte rs proceeded to the Depa rture

Point, u ually about 20 or 30 miles off the Ja p coast, and

th en truck off by themse lves to attack the ta rge t. Mean

while, the B-29s proceeded 50 or 100 mil es to the Rall y

Point, where the fi ghters were expected to reassemble af ter

th e strike. For the B-29s, it was simpl y a case of circling

the Rally Point fo r a half hour or lon ger. waiting for the

scrapp y smallfry to come back- if the y did_

It was cu tomary for each group to concentrate on only

one ta rget at a time. in order to provide mutual protection

against enemy ai r attack and ground fire_ Usually two

squadrons attacked the ta rge t. while the third provided top

cove r. Th en the coverin g quad ron ca me down and took a

cra ck at the ta rge t. whi Ie another squadron went upstairs.

But the g roup as a unit always stuck together. After the

strike, the plan es proceeded by units of not less than a

pair back to th e Rall y Point where th e B-29s were waiting.

Th e rounding-up of the fi ghters was expedited by a sys temof plane-to-plane radio te lephone communication , which

enabl ed one or more groups of fighters to be in constant

touch with their navi gational guid es. (Thi arne y tern

links the fighters with air-sea-rescue unit , and has been

responsible fo r aving the lives of man y pilots lost in bad

weather or forced down at sea . ) Th e fi ghter pilots and their

B-29 guides are like characters in a va t combat drama,

making their entrances and ex its as th ey ca reen through the

clouds at lightning speed_ speakin g lines that sound like

double- ta lk bu t are often a matter of life or death.

Co ntinued on page 73

71



Engine of this Mustang conked on take-off due to Iwo's volcanic dust. Injured pilot (right) is helped away.

Another P-51 is hoisted from 'w o 's runway after its engine quit. Th e fire is from the plane in picture above

Its stabilizer almost ; I i c f ' d in two by Jap AA thi s Mustang

jus t made it hack to Iwo OK . M t. Suribachi is at right.

P-47Ns began operations from lwo in July. While on a

"hake-down mi sion , this one spun into a hill , killed pilot.




What follows here i a snatch of dialogue that might be

heard as the fighters approach the Rally Point after an attack

on Himeji airfield. The code names are fictional, bu t follow

closely the actual names. The characters: 48 fighters ca lled

Small Fry; divided into three squadrons known respectively

as Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant; three Navigational B- 29 -

Uncle Adam, Uncle Bill , Uncle Charles; a Super Dumbo

(a ir -sea-rescue B-29) known as Cartwheel.

When ou r action starts, the fighters are just returning to

the Rally Point about 20 miles ofT Japan, where the three

13·295 are orbiting, waiting to guide them home.

UNCLE ADAM (the lead B-29): Any more Doctor ships

approaching the Rally Point? Give Uncle Adam a call.

UNCLE CHARLES: Uncle Adam, this is Uncle Charles . I

have seven Doctor ships with me, and ten Lawyers. I'm

proceeding home on a 185 course.

U CLE ADAM: All Small Fry coming into the Rally Point:

Uncle Charles has just headed on cour e 185. Follow him.

(Five more Small Fry join Uncle Charles and start home.

A few minutes later Uncle Bill rounds up 13 Sma ll Fry

and also starts home. Uncle Adam waits fo r the last three

stragglers. )

DOCTOR RED ONE (a fighter): This is Doctor Red One

calling Cartwheel. (Cartwheel is one of the Super Dumbos(a B-29) circ lin g a submarine posted at one of the Air-Sea

Rescue stations. Due to faulty communication, Cartwheel

does not hear the fighter's message. )

UNCLE ADAM: Doctor Red One, this is Uncle Adam. I'll

relay your message to Cartwheel 42 .

DOCTOR RED ONE: My engine's smoking from flak hit.

I'm at Silver Moon, seven Zero (code for his location)

Going to sp lash.

U CLE ADAM: H.oger. (He switches to a special Air-Sea

Rescue radio channel.) This is Uncle Adam calling Cart

wheel 42. Splash at Silver Moon, seven Zero.

CARTWHEEL 42 : Roger. Proceeding to scene of splash.

DOCTOR RED Two (wing man to the fighter in trouble):

Calling Cartwheel 42. Man in Goodyear (rubber life raft),

same po ition. I'm circling scene with Rooster showing

Mayday.

(This last remark refers to his IF F system which will help

guide Cartwheel 42 to the scene. Again, Uncle Adam re

lays this message to Cartwheel 42. Within ten minutes Cart

wheel 42 arrives over the man in the rubber raft, and then

ca ll s a submarine to the scene. Defying the Ja p Ai r Force

and Navy, the sub heads toward the enemy coast to pick up

the downed airman, while the Super Dumbo stands by until

the rescue is completed. Meanwhile, Uncle Adam continueshi business.)

UNCLE ADAM: (Picking up the last two Small Fry.) This

is Unc le Adam calling al l Sma ll Fry. I'm heading home

on course 360. Follow me.

MISSION COMPLETED

For the B-29 pilots this escort work may sound like a

comparatively easy a signment. They did not run into much

combat. But most of them wou ld fa r rather have faced com

ba t and been spared the worry and str-ain of shepherding a

flock of fighter pilots who had become their close friends.

"Hell," said one B-29 pilot, as he came back to Iwo after two

fighters had been shot down over Japan . " You live and eatwith these boys . You take their money at poker. You know

al l about them. That's why-" He didn't feel like talking

any more.

Fighters were also aided by radar-equipped Black Widows

(P-61s) who, in addition to patro l and combat duties, often

guided P-Sls onto Iwo's runways when they were socked in.

Returning from a mission, pilots usually retired to a bath

house built especially for fighter clientele. Here was a rub

down table and a row of deep tin tubs. Th e tubs were fed by

hot, suI phurous water that springs from I wo's volca nic

depths. Ho t water is an almost unheard-of luxury in the

Pacific. After soaking their muscles in these curative baths,

U. S. airmen had still another reason to thank God, and the

Marines, fo r one of the world 's most ugly, useful islands.

Shadows grew long before the fighters got back home to 'woo Missions used to last eight hours or longer.



8-29 PAYOFF continued

-- 58th WING 73rd WING--- 3131h WING

_ ROUTES OF WINGS

ROUTES OF

4- NAVY

3UBMARINE

o

74



'.

17

20th's ROUGHEST MISSIONBoth the Pa cific and the Europea n ai r wars had one fi erce,

furious miss ion that its s urvivors will never forget. It stands

out above the others becau e ou r losses were especially heavy

and the combat was e pecially bitter. In Europe it was, of

cour e, the famous Rege nsburg-Schweinfur t attack on 17

August 1943 when we lost 60 bombers. In th e Pacific it was

Mission 183 to Tokyo's urban area on the night of 25-26

May 1945 . Fact and figures pertaining to 183 are treatedcy raphical l y on the two diagrams at the left.

Of al l th e Twentieth Air Force miss ions, thi s was the most

cos tly. Also it was the most profitable.

Of 498 airborne planes_ 46 4 bombed the primary ta rge t.

Twenty-six were lost to enemy action, which i 5.6 per cent

of th e attacking force.

Of the 5,586 c rew members, 254 were cas ualties.

On th e credit id e, ] 8.9 sq ua re mil es of Tokyo were wiped

out- th e record for a single in cend iary attack.

Our losses to kno wn ca uses are indicated by the blue

numeral in the lowe r diagram. Of planes that were missing

fo r unknown reasons, th e majority were undoubtedl y ac

counted fo r by AA. One hundred Superforts, 21.3 per cent ,got back with Aak damage. The Japs put on a spectacular

display of sea rchli ght , rockets, weird "b a ll s of fire," Baka

bombs and all the other tri cks in their bag. Some 94 attacks

were attempted by th e enem y in tercep to rs. Seventeen were

c laimed to have been shot down and four damaged.

From eac h wing th e re were tw elve pathfinder planes,

whose routes are indica ted, on the lower diagram , by narrow

white lin es. Th ese lin e coin cide with the blue "wing lines"

f rom their bases to Iwo Jima . Th en th ey converge in a solid

white lin e on the route from Iwo to Tokyo. Flown by

peciall y trained crews, these pathfinder B-29s carried

500-lb. incendiary bombs des igne d to penetrate the mo t fire

resistant concrete buildings and to start large-scale fires that

would id entify the ta rge t a reas for the wings that followedlater.

Ai r-sea rescue submarines and surface vessels (destroyers

or destroye r escort) remained at their indicated stations

all during the 14-hour mission. Dumbos (Ca talinas and

B-17s) and four B-29 Super Dumbos stood by until the

trike aircraft had pa ssed. Then they moved up nea r Japan ,

sea rchin g fo r anybody who was in trouble. Crash boats

stayed on duty durin g takeoffs and landings at the Mariana

bases. (See next page for an account of the organization of

air-sea re cue.)

Th e diagram at the top of th e page shows the weather en

countered on the route to Japan by the B-29 . The fr action

(8/ lOth , e tc.) indicate the amount of cloud cover observedat various tage durin cy the mission. Because weather con

dition were so terribl e at lwo Jima, only one battle

damaged plane wa able to land there on the return trip. It

will be noticed that the a ltitude flown by each of the four

wings are shown by white lin es which are keye d to the same

legend a the blue lin e in the lower diag ram.

In the ta rget area, towering smoke columns and violent

the rmals forced 300 plane to bomb by radar, some as high

as 20,000 feet, although weather at Tokyo was actuall y clear.

75



76

B-2gers continued

A Tale of Bumbos, Super Bumbos and SubsNot even the ugly gulls were flying from Iwo the morning

of 16 May. Being birds, being smart, they knew when flying

things were supposed to stay on the ground. Yet when a

B·29 pilot returning from Tokyo sent a distress message

from 250 miles out at sea, a Flying Fortress carrying a boat

under its belly slipped up into the whiteness. A little later

the plane, flown by Rescue Pilot Lieutenant Ernest Witham,of Gary, Indiana, nosed down through a hole in the fog and

dropped its life boat to 10 men bobbing in the surf off

Sofajoan Rock. Ten men crawled into the boat and were

saved by the surface craft that Witham soon guided to their

rescue.

Now as a dark storm blew up , al l Witham and his crew

had to worry about was themselves. They found Iwo hidden

in fog wh en they returned. Only one small uncomp leted

runway was visible.

Dangerously low on gas, the plane circled. Then the con·

trol tower operator radioed from the ground, "Fly around

just 10 more minutes and you can land."

"But," said the pilot, "that runway's not finished yet.It's got bumps and holes in it."

"Sure," said the operator, "but I've called the Aviation

Engineers. They're going to finish it right now- in the next

10 minutes."

And so they did , rushing around knocking down bunkers

and filling up holes . In 10 minutes the fie ld was finished

and the Fortress came in fo r a rough but safe landing.

It was just another rou tine Air-Sea Rescue flight.

The Flying Fortress which spotted the crippled B-29 and

saved its crew did not just happen along. It was part of a

tremendous life-net of airplanes, and any craft available,

which could be thrown quickly across any part of the Pacific

where Americans were flying. In the Marianas the Navy

controlled Air-Sea Rescue, but the Army's 4th EmergencyRescue Squadron furnished the B-17s and Catalinas which

carried the biggest burden in Twentieth Air Force Opera

tions. B-17s, carrying boats, flew side by side with Navy

PBYs, and both Army and Navy men flew that traditional

rescue boat, the Catalina. Notified of a survivor's position

by these searching airplanes, submarines, destroyers, even

battleships have veered from their course to rescue a single

man.

With the exception of takeoff crashes, the great majority

of distress incidents were caused by enemy action over the

target, which resulted in planes going down on the home

ward trip. Therefore, for any B-29 mission to Japan, a more

or less standard pattern of rescue stations (p lanes, boats,

subs) was spread along the return route between Japan andTwo Jima.

A single rescue team usually consisted of a submarine with

one or two Dumbos (B-17s) circling over it. These teams

were spaced so that any point along the return route could

be reached by a rescue plane in 20 to 30 minutes, and by

rescue vessels in four hours, at the most. Three subs and

one surface vessel were customarily spread out between

Japan and Iwo, with the northernmost sub 20 or 30 miles

from the Jap coast. During fighter strikes the subs moved

as close as five miles. Due to their hazardous position, they

were usually covered by two Super Dumbos (B-29s).

Here is how the plan worked, as it was finally evolved.

When a mission was scheduled, Bomber Headquarters'

phoned to ComSubPac at Guam and received immediate in

formation as to which subs would be available, their ca1l5

and positions. Th is data was included in the request dis

patch which was then sent to Air-Sea Rescue units at Iwo

Jima, calling for surface vessels and Dumbos.

The rescue plan was also sent to each Bomb Wing par

ticipating in the mission so that its crews could be properly

briefed. Each wing was expected to provide its own Super

Dumbos-usually two-for sub cover, and crews were

rotated for this special duty.

When the mission was in progress, if any distress incidents

occurred, the call for help was usually radioed to Wing

Headquarters, which assumed the responsibility of notifying

the rescue agencies on Iwo or Saipan. Direct communication

between disabled aircraft and rescue units at sea was also

carried on, but the wing was still the focal point for all

information regarding its own aircraft in trouble.

From November of last year-when mass operationsbegan against Japan- through the month of July, more than

600 20th AF flyers were saved in open-sea rescues. To make

these pick-ups, more than 2,000 mi les were flown for every

man saved.

Co ld statistics can never tell the life or death story behind

every rescue. They can never tell , for example, how Lieu

tenant Lamar Christian felt when he bailed out of his P -5l

five miles from the Jap coast. As he floated down over the

water, he knew that the Japs were watching him from shore,

and would most certain ly put out a boat to capture him .

From out of nowhere a Flying Fortress appeared, and began

to circle him. The minute he splashed, the plane came low,

dropped a smoke bomb beside him to mark his position.

Then it flashed a message to a nearby submarine which inturn raced fo r the dirty smudge of smoke now standing like

a plume on the horizon . Thirty minutes after he jumped,

Lieutenant Christian was safely aboard the sub.

Meanwhile another fighter plane had come staggering out

to sea. A man could have jumped through the flak hole in

its wing. In its cockpit Lieutenant Frank Ayres of Lake

Charles, Louisiana, knew he could never make it back to

base, never would get home to tell about the two Jap fighters

he had just bagged over Shimodate airfield- or so it seemed

until he spotted the friendly B-29.

"I'm bai ling out," he shouted into his radio.

"W e know," came the answer. " But a sub's picking up

another man now. I f you can stay aloft for five more

minutes we can give you better attention ."

Better attention within five mi les of Japan? Within

range of Jap shore guns? Ayres wrestled with his plane and

kept it in the ai r the additiona l five minutes. When he

jumped out the submarine coasted alongside him and picked

him up before he could free himself from the parachute.

"Again?" said Ayres.

It was unbe lievable now that he had time to think of it.

Twice he had faced what seemed almost certain death upon

bailing out over the ocean. Twice he had been picked up just

as he struck the water. This was the second time he had been

saved from the ocean within a period of one month.



1earch proceeds for a P·51 pilot shot down on a strafing

mission a t Chichi Jima. Speciall y modified B·17

equip ped with " Fl yin g Dutchman" lifeboat and operating

from airfi eld on Iwo Jima, is plane pictured in thi sequence.

3 B·17 crew has s potted th eir man and has released "Fl ying

Dutchman." When li feboat hits water, smoke markers go

off to how it locati on. In three and one ha lf year s, air·sea

rescue changed from haphazard luck to scientific operation.

5De troye r arrives to complete th e rescue. B·17 has stayed

around to vector th e hip to th e li feboat. Most vital fac·

tor in successful rescue is dependabie radio communications

which everyone co ncerned knows how to operate properly.

2Rescue plane, with photographic escort, skirts the shore

of Chichi at low altitude. Previous advice radioed from

the P·51 squadron leader has fixed approximate position

of distressed pilot, a very small ta rget in the open sea.

4 Pilot is in the boat before th e smoke markers burn out.

Air·sea rescu e was a smooth running bu iness in which

tandard procedures we re develop ed fo r submarine , naval

craft, and planes to coop erate in getting back downed men.

6ilot comes aboard for th e trip back to Iwo. Besides

avin g hund reds of lives, rescue service wa a moral e

booster that paid off in in creased efficiency. It was the chief

factor that mitigated the fears of over·water combat flying.

77



B-2gers continued

Turl.ing Poil.t: Gen. Le A " ' a y Great Becisiol'On 20 January. Major General Curtis LeMa y took charge

of the XX I Bomber Command, with its headquarters on

Guam. He had left Eu rope in 1944 to assume command of

the India·based B·29 op e ration s, two month after they had

s tarted. ow he had left India to assume command of B·29

operations in the Mariana two months after thefi

rst Tokyomission. A B·29 can run into a good deal of troub lc in two

months .

In China the main trouble had been distan ce, uppl y and

to so me extent, weather. In the Mariana it was la rgely

weather. Du e to treacherou s, unpredictabl e weather. not one

of th e 11 priority targets was des tro yed in the fir ' t 2.000

sorti es . A third of the total effort had been spent on Mu a·

shino-Target 357- and it was only four per cent des tro yed.

Th re was only one opportunity for visua l bombin g durin g

General LeMa y's first six weeks at Guam.

Even when good weather prevailed over the ta rget, the

B·29 often ha d to batt le their way throu gh evere fronts on

the lon g overseas flight. Formations were scattered and man y

crew missed the briefed landfall by a co nside rable dis tance.i t h a sma ll fue l re se rve on hi gh.altitude mi ss ion s, error

in navigation were ometime impossib le to correct and

ai rc raft were forced to return early or bomb a ta rge t of

opportunit y. An ad ded obstacle to navi ga tion was the fa ct

that Jap.held is lands on route could not be used as check

points fo r fear of al e rting the enem y radar ystem. But the

tou ghest probl em. as mention ed ea rl ier, wa the terrifi c wind

ve lo city at hi <Yh altitudes over Japan. True, some crews

were able to hi t the ta rge t consis tentl y. But th ey were an

exception, provin g that more than average training and un·

usual aptitude were needed to do the jo b (a lead crew sc hool

was s tarted in an effort to discover and train such leaders) .

Another resul t of the high·altitude attacks was the cumula·

tive s train on men and equipment. Lon g formation fli ghtsshortened engine li fe, contributed grea tl y to crew fati gue.

Again t thi background of poor condition s and poor reo

sul ts, it was decided to depart radica ll y from the traditiona l

doctrine of s trateg ic bombardment. Just how radi cal l y was

not known to most of the fl yers unti I th e memorable mornin<Y

of 9 March when in al l briefing rooms throughout the Mari·

an a an announcement was made. It was followed by a ud·

den , shocked silence as the crews began to rea lize what they

had just heard:

(l ) A se ri es of maximum effort night in cendiary attacks

were to be made on major Japanese indus trial cities.

(2) Bombing altitudes would be from 5,000 10 8,000 fee t.

(3 ) 0 armament or ammunition wou ld be carried and

the ize of th e crew wou ld be redu ced .

(4) Aircraft would attack indi iduall y.

(5 ) Tokyo , bri stlin g with defenses, would be the first

targe t.

In making thi s darin<Y decision , General LeMa y was not

motivated imply by the des ire to get better performance

f rom his crews an d ai rcraft. we re these operations con·

ceived as terror raids again t Japan 's civilian population.

Th e Japane e economy depended heav il y on home industr ies

carried on in citi es c lose to major fa cto ry areas. By de·

stroying the se feeder indu stries, the flow of vital parts could

be curtailed an d production diso rganized. A general con ·

fla gration in a cit y lik e Tok yo or Nagoya might have the

furth er advantage of spreadin <Y to ome of the priority tar·

ge ts loca ted in those area , making it unnecessa ry to knock

them ou t by se parate pinpoint atta ck .

In cendiary o perations were not new. Several trial had

been made. On ome allacks a mixed load of HE an d in·cendiary bomb ' had been used with indifferent resul ts. On

three miss ions prior to 9 March in cendiaries alone were used .

According to the Ph ase Analysis report . from which mu ch

of the forego ing data wa assembled. these resul ts, too, were

indifferent. Thi was partl y becau e the balli tic character·

is ti cs of in cendiary c1u , te rs rendered them in accurate when

dropped from hi gh altitudes in stron g wind. partly becau e

not enough B·29s had been available for a major s trike

again ' t a big urban a rea . But by the s ta rt of Mar ch the

313th Wing had joined th e 73rd as a full y operative

unit. an d two g roups from the t h . rece ntl y arrived on

Guam. were read y for action. Th u s. the combin ed force now

totalled more than 300 ai rcraft-enou<Yh to s trike a spark.

On e main advantage in lowe rin g the altitude to between5.000 an d 10.000 feet was the in creased bomb load. A in g le

13·29 fl ying in formation at high altitud e could ca rr y only 35

pe r cent of the po ible bomb load of a B·29 attacking indi o

viduall y at the lower altitude. This was made poss ibl e. of

co ur se. becau se individual attacks required no assembly over

the base at the miss ion 's tart or reassembl y on route to the

ta rge t. Aircraft would go directl y from ba e to ta rge t and

re turn , thus sav in <Y gas a nd allowing a g rea te r bomb load.

Better wea ther would be enco untered at the lower altitude.

an d the heavy, gas·co n ' uming winds of high altitudes would

be avoided. Th e weight o[ ex tra crew members, armamont

and ammunition would go into bombs . With the la rges t

bomb load ca rri ed to da te to Japan , each B·29 would bear

six to eight ton s, la rge ly the new M·69 fire bomb, composed

of an incendia ry c lu te r containin g a jell y·ga oline com"

pound. It was felt tha t the weakne s of Ja p night fi ghters

ju stifi ed the e limination of armament.

Time 1\ as a c rucial e lemen t in th e new plan.

Ja p night fi ghte rs were kn own to be weak, but flak lo oses

were ex pected to be ubs tantial. By makin g a night·time

a tta ck it wa hoped to minimize these losses, sinee enemy

radar gun· laying devices were thou ght to be comparative ly

inefTicient. an d heavy AA guns would thu have to depend 011

searchli ghts fo r e ffe ctive fire co ntrol.

It was found that the best time for tak eo ff was around dusk,

;; 0 that the planes could benefit by at least so me da y light [o r

,he ge taway. Thi s brought them to the target ju st heforedawn. and. mo ' Limportant , enabled them to make the home·

ward flight by daylight. thus avoidin g night di tchin gs of

baLlle·damaged ai rcraft.

Finall y, the se miss ion s had to be completed in time fo r

the B·29s to coo rdinate the ir effort ' with the naval strike

at Okinawa (see B·29 Blockade, pa ge 49). Since the first of

the Okinawa operations wa schedul ed fo r 23 March , only a

little more than two weeks were available in which to hit the

four big ta rge ts-To kyo. Nagoya , Osaka , Kobe.

Viewed in retro spect, it appears that almost eve rything

was in favor of the low·altitude night attacks. Nevertheless.

it took ex traordinar y co u rage to risk 300 unarmed ai rcraft



on a new type of attack directly opposed to the traditional

doctrine of high-altitude precision bombing fo r which the

8-29s had been expressly designed_ The imagination, the

flexibility of mind, the unwillingness to be bound by estab

Ii hed precepts once they no longer proved applicable to

the situation at hand- these qualities in our Ai r Forces

leadership contribu ted beyond measure to our victory, and

were indeed our secret weapon.

Probably no mission, except the first historic one against

Yawata and Tokyo, was sweated out with more anxiety thanth e 9 March strike on Tokyo. This time, in the event of

failure, nobody could claim th at we were pioneering against

an unknown enemy. Thi s time the risk of men and equip

men t was man y times greater. This time it was later in the

game and the need for dec isive ai r action was more acute.

On th e afternoon of 10 March , when one by one the B-29s

returned to the Marianas, th e verdict became known. Pilots

told how Tok yo "caught fire like a forest of pine trees."

A few hours later came the photographic evidence. Sixteen

and a half square miles of Tokyo had gone up in smoke.

Eighty-five per cent of th e target area was destroyed. And

lhi included 16 targets which were numbered fo r pinpoint

attack. Out of 302 aircraft over the target, 14 were lost

the largest loss suffered on an y of the five missions.

Less than 36 hours later the B-29s were off again, to

agoya. During this strike the crews peered down on what

' looked like a gigantic bowling center with all the alleys

,

LeaOels like this, dropped by B-29s on Japan during last

weeks of war, listed some cities wh ich were sla ted for attack.

lighted 1I p; each flight had left an all ey of flames." But the

sca ttered fires never joined to create a genera l conflagration

and final results were not too good. A total of 1.56 square

miles was destroyed . Nagoya was unfinished business.

Osaka. Kobe. These were next on the timetable. On

13 March more than 300 B-295 destroyed 8.1 square miles

of Osaka, and on 17 March 2.4 square miles of Kobe, in

cluding 11,000,000 square feet of dock area, were reduced to

cinders. Fifth and last attack in the series was made on the

return trip to Nagoya when again more than 300 B-29sdropped some 2,000 tons on the city. Over-compensating for

the scattered bombing on the previous attack, the bombs

were dropped in too small an area, and only .65 square

mi les of the city were destroyed. But nobody doubted, least

of al l the Japs, that the blitz was a holocaust. In five mis

sions more than 29 square miles of Japan's chief industrial

ce nters were burned out beneath a rain of bombs that totaled

10,100 tons. By comparison, on the Luftwaffe's greatest fire

raid on London, only 200 ton were dropped. And on the

Eighth AF's record strike on Berlin (3 Feb., 1945) over

1,000 heavy bombers made a 1,000-mile round trip to drop

2,250 tons. During the ten-day blitz, nearly this same ton

nage was carried on each mission by only 300 B-29s. The

round trip exceeded 3,200 miles.

Our losses to AA and fi ghters were less than 1.3 per

ce nt of aircraft over the target, and they were soon to drop

even lower. Greatest so urce of alarm to our flyers were the

•

This tip-off enabled Japs to flee cit ies, but reminded them of

their helplessness, and confused th em as to exact targets.


7



80

This rain of bombs is pOI.l,ring down on on e of four small lap cities which were burned ou t on 16 l uly.

B2gers continued

terrifi c thermals, or hot ai r cu rrents, that rose from the blaz

ing ta rgets and sent our aircraft into a black hell of smo ke

(no losses were ever attributed directly to thermals ) _ One

B-29 commander re lated what happened over Osaka: " We

headed into a grea t mu hroom of boiling, oily smoke, and

in a few seconds were tossed 5,000 fee t into the air. It

wa a jerky, nappy movement. The shock was so violent

that I felt I was losing consciousness_ 'Thi is it,' I thouaht,' I can't pull out of it. ' Smoke poured into th e ship and

every light wa blacked out. It smelled lik e singed hair, or a

burning dump heap_ Everybody coughed_ We were tossed

around fo r eight or ten seconds_ Flak he l mets were torn off

our head _ The ship was filled with fl ying oxygen bottles,

thermos jug , ea r phones_ latrine cans, cigarette lighters,

cans of fruit juice_ We dropped down again with a terribl e

jolt, and in a few more econd pulled ou t into the clear_"

Discussing the morale of the B-2gers after the blitz, one

report aid, "The phenomena I succe s of ou r new tacti cs ha d

precipitously a lvaged the mora le and fi ghting spirit of ou r

crews by providin g a degree of battle success proportionate

to the effort expended . __ Amazingly, the number of cases of

fl ying personnel di sorders due to fl ying, which had increa ed

tcadil y prior to 9 March fell off sharply after ]9 March

1945_" Cases were reduced from one per cen t of the total

fl ying personnel to two -tenths 0/ one per cent, or a total

reduction of 80 pe r cent.

I f our crews were encou raged by th e low losse and goodresults of thi s initial phase, the y trul y hadn ' t see n the half

of it yet. More and more B-29s were put on the job_ Tail

guns were rein taIled fo r minimum protection_ Fighter

esco rt was avai lable, if needed. In May and June fo rce of

400 planes, and more, were launched against the big ta rge ts_

By l5 June they were so completely destroyed, that the B-29s

started a new campaign against more than 60 of the smaller

indu trial citie (see Part 6). Lo ses continued to nose dive_

In June the average B-29 loss rate per mi sion was _08% _ In

Jul y it was .03%_ In August it was _02%. In th e Marianas

a low altitude incendiary attack on Jaj.>an was con idered to

be about the sa fest pastime a man could enjo y.



Epilogue: Yawata Becomes Finished Business

ToTom Gore, the sleeping gunner on "No. 11" nearing Iwo

Jima in the gray down of 8 August 1945, it would hardly seem

that all the foregoing achievement was designed just to instill

more peace and confidence into his catnap. Even in his dreams

General Arnold was not saying, "Tom, my boy, it was all for

you." Yet, in a sense, it was. He was breathing easier

because some men ho d stopped breathing altogether. He

breathed easier because Iwo Jima hod been won, because

while he slept a vast system of air-sea rescue units was already

in operation, because months ag o a decision hod been mode

to risk 300 aircraft and 3,000 crew members on a low

altitude attock that hod "salvaged the morale and fighting

spirit of our crews." He was waking up more refreshed,

better able to do his job because of all the planning, the work,

the sacrifices that hod advanced the war thus for. In turn,

other Americans would woke up more refreshed because of

the job that Tom Gore was doing.

This does not imply that war is a benevolent enterprise, or

that the din of bottle is a lullaby for sleepy young formers

from Tennessee. But it is the nature of war that while it

ruthlessly sacrifices some, it does profit others. It is the nature

of the American character, at its best, to put a high price onthe individual. Tom Gore and his kind were not cut out to

be Kamikaze pilots.

Crawling out of the long dark tube of "No. 11," he took

his place at the gunner's window. "No.1 1" was soon circling,

in its own appointed sector of space, above the pinpoint

island of Kita Jima. The time was about 0600. Holding a

red Aldis lamp, Gore began to signal to other B-29s that

were showing up at the Assembly Point. The red flashes

simply identified "No. 1 1" as the lead plane. It was a strange

kind of rendezvous as one by one the B-29s appeared in the

lonely gray light over a sea of thick clouds, orbiting around

a theoretical signpost above the earth's surface. But the

signpost existed firmly in every navigator's mind.

Within the hour all planes in the squadron hod assembled,

and "No. 11" led them toward the Reassembly Point above

the island of Kushino Shima where an y planes that ho d

strayed off would have a second chance to join the squadron.

The distance from Kita to Kushino Shima was about 75 0

miles. From there the squadron began its 180-mile lop to

the Departure Point on the coast of Kyushu.

Some observers soy that as a crew gets really close to

Japan, they become grimmer, tenser. But on "No. 11" they

simply become busier-at least, outwardly . Flak suits, para

chutes, Moe Wests, portable dinghys were stropped on.

Oxygen masks were tested. Although they were not neces

sary in the pressurized comportments, they would be worn

in case the plane was punctured by flak . The two side gunners, Gore an d Sgt. Devon Fronk/in, scanned the air for enemy

fighters. Tech. Sergeant J. J. Farrell, the Central Fire Control

gunner, sot up on his revolving pedestal and peered out the

top blister. The toil gunner, Sergeant Kenneth Grumbine, ho d

crawled bock to his post. The guns were manned but no

men were at the guns. The gunner 's job was to spot the

target through his finder, an d by on astoundingly complex

mechanism the gun would be automatically aimed and fired .

Con.tinued on next page

A catnap during a long mission i taken by a crew member,

wearing Mae West, in the long tube that connects pressurized

compartments. Below: Beginning bomb run, pilot switches

on automatic pilot, while bombardier {center } adjusts sights.



Meal time ,aboa rd this B-29, with trays of vegetables, was

fancier than usua l. Genera lly, crews we re given sandwiches,

cans of juice, gum, candy. They brou ght their own peanuts.

Once over Japan, the first of the P-47 escort requested

from Okinawa began to appear- It consisted of three groups

of the 301st Fighter Wing based on nearby Ie Shima _ They

ranged far below the 8-29s, waiting to pounce on any Jap

fighters that might rise for the kill. As it happened, no

enemy fighters attacked "N o . 11 ," though a few were sighted,

and one was seen to go down in flames. As "No . 11" passed

the IP and neared the target at an altitude of 21,000 ft . two

phosphorus bombs, dropped from a Jap fighter that had

managed to sneak overhead, dangled their woolly white

tentacles a half mile away. Flak was meager, for the target

area by now was obscured by 8/ 10s to 1011 0s cloud. This

meant that the bombardier's job devolved upon the radar

operator, Sergeant " Red" Edwards, who sat in his windowless,

dark room towards the back of the plane and watched the

outlines of Yawata appear in ghostly light upon his scope.

The bomb ba y doors were already open. The moment of payoff

was at hand . 8y turning a dial so that two cross hairs inter

sected over the target image on his scope, a red-headed boy

from Cleveland dropped some 10,000 pounds of explosives on

a city in lapan-a city of some 650,000 inhabitants, only a

little smaller than his own hometown . The incendiary clusters

were fuzed to open in mid-air, at 5,000 feet, and sprinkletheir contents over the target area. Mixed with the clusters

were some magnesium bombs, included because of the ir

"penetration characteristics."

The plane surged upward, relieved of its burden, and

veered to the left to avoid the AA fire that was expected from

the Shimonoseki strait area. From Yawata a column of gray

smoke towered 35,000 feet an d mingled with the clouds .

For one crew, the Yawata mission, with its long build-up of

anxiety, passed with anticlimactic ease. To be sure, they were

still more than 1,500 miles from base-gas an d engines had

to be sweated out. But the worst was over. If trouble had

come, it would have been sudden and violent. Not coming,

it seemed so remote as to be almost nonexistent. For a few

hours, now, eleven men , sealed up in their own world, would

enjoy that remoteness which is peculiar to their business. The

future, and part of the past, was hidden by 1011 0ths clouds.

They did not know that during the takeoff of the 58th

Wing on Tinian, seven hours earlier, two 8-29s had blocked

both runways by a crack up and 96 aircraft were canceled

from the mission; that another 8-29 from the 58th Wing had

ditched after a flak hit and nine men would be rescued; that

a 8-29 from the 313th Wing on the same mission had ditched

at sea after being hit by a Jap fighter an d the entire crew

was missing; that another 8-29 from the 313th ha d crashed

at sea after the takeoff and nine men were missing; that out of

120 planes airborne from their own wing, none were lost; that32 of their planes had landed at Iwo Jima, mostly on the

return route.

They did not know that 151 P-47 s ha d escorted their mission

over the target and five had been lost; that 55 to 65 la p

fighters ha d shown up , evidently on the assumption that the

8-295 would not be escorted, and offered the strongest recent

aerial qpposition encountered in the Kyushu area, that our own

fighters ha d shot down 13 of the laps, and the 8-29s had

accounted for at least two more; that four of our fighter

pilots ha d bailed out at sea; that two 8-29s were slightly

singed by phosphorus bombs and 22 others were hit by flak ;



that 1.22 square miles or 21 percent of Yawata had been

destroyed ; that the Pacific war would be over in one week.

As " No . 11 " cruised over the green islands of the Inland

sea and out across the Pacific, some of the watchfulness went

out the crew's faces . They all looked younge r. They unpacked

sandwiches, cans of pineapple juice, bags of candy, and

" ACK ACK, the chocolate covered nut roll. " They opened

up their books an d comic magazines: " The Pride of Montana ,"

"The Nazarene ," "Captain Marvel." After functioning together

as a team, each man seemed to withdraw a little into himself.

Bristling with half a million dollars' worth of precision instru-

ments, the gunner's compartment took on the look of a kids'

shack bu ilt out of metal scraps an d packing boxes, the kind

of place that you find in thousands of American backyards .

This is not a reflection on the courage an d maturity that these

same men had shown an hour ag o . It is a reminder of

our origins .

It was not hard to imagine with them another man wearing

two stars. His face has been called grim. It is not . But it

bears the stamp of a man with one single purpose; to get a

job done with the greatest possible dispatch at the least

possible cost. He might be in the pilot's seat, giving Captain

Criss a chance to rest, or if he were tired himself, he might

ee lying on the floor . His dignity does not depend upon

posture. True to the legend, which probably irks him, he

would be wreathed in the smoke of a large cigar.

Familiar pattern of Nor th field , Guam , is a wonderful sight to 8·29s returning af ter a 3 ,OOO.mile mission

•



Part 68·29 PAYOFFIn Five Months Japan W ar Economy Was Ruined

Japan's ability to continue the war finally collapsed amid

the ashes of her burned·out cities. Her industry, blockaded

and bombed into a shambles, finally could no longer support

a large, modern war machine. This situation was caused by

the 8·29, which, in the final phase of the war, was the de·

cisive factor.

The final phase was swift. President Truman's announce·

ment of the surrender came 157 days after the Twentieth Air

Force first cut loose with fire bombing. In those 157 days,

the main strategic ai r weapon literally wrecked the enemy

nation.

Our intelligence analysts rubbed their hands with antlcl'

pation when they examined Japanese industry. Here was no

dispersed, well·organized system like Germany's. They

knew that only a few vulnerable target areas had to be

obliterated before Japan would be on the ropes. A study of

her cities showed that the wood and plaster buildings were a

set·up for area incendiary bombing. Only 10 pe r cent were

made of stone, brick, metal or reinforced concrete. Many

modern factories were hemmed in by solid masses of flimsyworkshops, the very homes of the workers themselves. Peace·

time conAagrations had been frequent in Japan; this had not

been true of Germany. Water supplies, never adequate, were

dangerously low for large·scale fire fighting. In addition,

our experts discounted all talk about Japan 's ability to sur·

vive through her Manchurian industry alone. They were

convinced that once the heart of the Empire had been gouged

out, she was licked.

On the basis of these facts, the bombers of the Twentieth

Air Force went to work. Their success is, if anything, con·

siderably understated here because information is still in·

comp lete in many instances. The aerial camera cannot peer

into every remote corner of a country and disclose if this orthat piece of factory machinery has been dispersed, gone

underground, or whether it is scorched, corroded and useless.

Until extensive surveys are made of each bombed area, any

report can at best be only a partial one. It cannot, except

Sample of what B·29 incendiaries did to 69 Japanese cities

is this night view of burning Toyama on 1 August. Formerly

a big producer of aluminum. the city was 95.6% demolished .

in the case of the aircraft propeller industry, show exactly

the specific bottlenecks caused by bombing.

For one picture of what happened to Japanese industry,

here are some estimates of factory space destroyed by both

area and precision attacks in 12 major war industries, listed

in order of their importance.Pre·attack Plant Industrial bldgs.

Industry Area in 'OOOs destroyed orof sq. ft. badly damaged

Aircraft . . 140,000 37'7'0

Ordnance . . . . . . . . . . 110,000 15'7'0

Shipbuilding and repair . 45,000 15'7'0

Oil (including storage) . 150,000 5%

Electrical equipment . . . . 40,000 28'7'0

Machine ry & finished metal prod . 110,000 33'7'0

Metals ( f e r r v ~ s and non.ferrous) 150,000 14'7'0

Chemicals . . . 130,000 9'7'0

Rubber . . . . . . . . . . . 30,000 17'7'0

Textiles 50,000 24'7'0

Mil. and Gen. storage area . 200,000 12'7'0

All others . .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . 445,000 20'7'0

Industrial damage totaled 288,000,000 square feet. Of

industry in the 69 cities blitzed, 27.4 percent was badly

damaged. Yet this fail s to tell a complete story. Many un·

damaged factories were of no use because the blockade and

bombing of supporting industries denied them the necessary

materials to fabricate. Likewise, it is impossible to trans·

late physical plant damage into specific production loss. On

the basis of what we learned in Germany, where fire bomb·

ing was much less successful than it was in Japan , the per·

centage of production loss for six weeks after incendiary

missions was sometimes double the percentage of space de·

stroyed. The Japanese, in contrast to the Nazis, did almost

nothing to repair damage. They cleared up rubble inside

bombed·out plants, then abandoned them completely. Other

factors contributing tolo

ss of output were: (1) shortages ofmaterials; (2) transportation interruptions; (3) lowered

worker morale; (4) absenteeism; and (5) administrative

disorganization. All these probably added up to an actual

percentage of production loss nearly double the percentage

of physical plant damage.

Important results in some instances are hidden in the

table above. Oil target areas are reported as only five

percent destroyed. However, due to the fact that most pro·


85



86

B·29 PAYOFF continued

duction was confined to a relatively few modem facilities,

the 315th Wing, by concentrating on 11 of Japan's newest

refineries, reduced over-all oil output by 30 percent in little

more than a month of operations_ Synthetic producti on

sagged even more sharply with a drop of 44 percent, which

represents an actual loss of some 265,000 barrels_

As in the case of Germany, the first target system of

fundamental importance was the aircraft industry which was

treated to both high explosive and incendiary attacks_

Against this type of target, the fire bombing was even moreeffective than had been antici pated. Many large structures

were consumed by flames which gave added dividends _by

ruining machinery that possibly could have been salvaged

if subjected to HE only. Despite our attention to this in

dustry, Japan still had plenty of planes at war's end so one

might assume that the B-29 effort was a wasted one. It

was not, and for very simple reasons.

On 1 August 1945 Jap monthly production was estimated

at 1,834 combat planes. This figure was 75 percent of their

production fo r December 1944, before bomb damage became

appreciable. It indicates that by some dispersal, use of

In January 1944, presumably alarmed by the invasion of

Tarawa, Jap intelligence officers began speculating on the

possibility of bombing attacks against Japan. An elaborate

excess plant capacity and production in hidden sites (in

cluding a small number of underground shops), the Japs,

like the Germans, were still able to produce a sizable num

ber of aircraft despite our prolonged attacks. Also, they had

planned a considerable increase in production.

The Twentieth Air Force expended 45.5 percent of the

15,000 tons it dropped on the aircraft industry against aero

engine plants. Another 49.5 percent went on airframe as-

sembly plants. This probably denied the JAF between 6,400

and 7,200 planes through July 1945. These, if it had beenpo sible to employ them as Kamikazes at Okinawa, might

well have delayed the outcome of the war.

Strangel y enough, a portion of the remaining five per cent

dropped on subsidiary aircraft industries by the Twentieth,

plus extremely successful fire attacks against Osaka and

Shizuoka, would have hurt the Japane e most during the

balance of 1945. The Sumitomo propeller plants at Amaga

saki, Shizuoka and Osaka, making 70 percent of all the

props used on first-line Jap combat aircraft, suffered 60.5

percent damage, which , together with some damage to the

Japan Musical Instrument Co. propeller plant in Hamma-

int-elligence document showing the enemy estimate of the

scale and direction of such attacks wa s captured on Okinawa.

The hasic f i g l l r e ~ containecl in it arr reproduced above.



matsu, curtailed prop output sufficiently to cause a five

months production loss. It is estimated that the resulting

bottlenecks would have forced aircraft production down to

41 percent of its 1 January 1945 rate by November of 1945.

Cumulative effects would have begun to be felt seriously just

at the time our invasion was scheduled. It undoubtedly ' was

one of the factors that convinced the Japs that the situation

was hopeless.

Though aircraft continued to be No. 1 priority, other in·

dustries received an ample share of attention. Shipbuildinghad dropped 60 percent by V·J Day, partly due to the fire

bombing of Kobe, Osaka, and Yokohama, but principally

because of steel shortages. Ordnance, a particular pet of

the Twentieth, was cut 40 percent. Iron, steel and coke,

the key heavy industries of war, were down 56 percent

primarily because of the blockade, but also partly due to

bombing. Aluminum output slumped 35 percent. Military

and industrial storage areas also suffered heavily.

Unlike the bombing program for Germany, where trans

portation rated top priority along with aircraft and oil, we

had not yet reached the stage where it was necessary to

Actual tonnages dropped on Japan underscore the com

plete Jap failure to forecast the scale of the aerial onslaught

launched by us. They were equally poor at predicting its

concentrate on rail targets. Japan's rail system, incidentally,

like her industry, was far more vulnerable than Germany's.

Not until 14 August, the last mission of the war, did the

29s hit a Jap rail target. Nonetheless, the fire blitzes had

an amazingly potent effect on land transport. Together with

depreciation of already poor rail equi pment, they cut rail·

road traffic to less than half the volume of a year ago. With

coastwise shipping also disrupted, the Japanese were faced

with what was admittedly their worst economic bottleneck.

This was the most important by. product of the incendiaryattacks.

Many lesser industries contributing to the Japanese war

economy also were heavily affected by B-29 bombing. Elec

tronics equipment production, already insufficient to supply

demands, was down 35 percent. These in turn were badly

needed for repairing bombed-out factories and for retooling

damaged machinery. The little factories of 30 workers or

less, where the Japanese produced components for delivery

to larger assembly plants, took a terrible beating from area

attacks. Just as the experts predicted, they were wiped out

by the thousands in all the big cities.

Continued ·on page 90

direction. They expected 75 percent of the effort from China.

got less than one per cent, apparently had no idea that we

would soon be operating from the Marianas and Okinawa.

87



88

1Kure, before it go t its arsenal well kicked by pinpointing

B-29s on 22 June, made heavy armaments fo r Jap Navy.

3Kure naval arsenal was 70 percent (2,949,690 sq. ft. of

roof area) destroyed or damaged by the 20th AF. Car-

2 attleship Haruna had its stern blow n off by a 4,000·lb .

bomb hit during strike. Navy planes sank her on 28 July.

rier planes also scored some hits. Intense flak from warships

in the harbor damaged 59 per cent of attacking Superforts.



1iro engine and turbine factory {bottom left ) and naval

aircraft plant were precision ta rgets of B-29s on 5 May.

3roduction of long-range Jap seaplane Emily collap ed at

Hiro after thr 2 9 ~ I!:ot throul!:h . Photo intelligence h o

2erfect bombing blotted out the two tar gets, which were

sub-sections of the Kure naval arsenal on opposite page.

71.5 percent dest ruction (34 of 38 buildings in right-hand

plant area hit ). Th e engine factory was over half KO'ed.

89



90

Take a good look at the pictures on these two pages. They

tell the story of what the Superforts did to Japan's war

making capacity more vividly than words.

Much of her war industry was crammed into these five

cities. For example, 40 per cent of all aircraft engine pro

duction , 25 per cent of all final aircraft a sembly wa at

Nagoya_ Ordnance was somewhat more widely dispersed,

but Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya each contained about 10 per

cent of the total. Tokyo, in addition to being the Empire's

administrative and political nerve-center, teemed with thou -

ands of shack-like workshops, too numerous to be selectecl as

individual targets. Osaka, with its 1940 population of

3,252,240, was second only to Tokyo among the leading in

dustrial communities of the Fa r East. It produced arma

ments, shipping and other tools of war. Yokohama also

ranked high.

Tokyo, 0 aka, Nagoya, Yokohama, and Kobe caught 44.1

per cent of all Twentieth Air Force tonnage. Serious dam

age to identified industry ranges from 25 per cent in Osaka

to 43 per cent in Nagoya. The aircraft industry within these

cities suffered 50 per cent damage. Ordnance and metal

were lowest at 21 per cent. Kobe's industrial area was 41

per cent obliterated_ So thoroughly gutted were most sec

tions of the "Big Five" (their burned areas totaled 103.22sq. mi. ) , that they were no longer considered essential

targets except for occasional pinpoint "policing" attacks.

Once they had taken care of the big fellows, the 29s relent

lessly went after the Toledos and Bridgeports of Japan. In

all, 69 cities were treated to "burn jobs." On the basis of

Kobe Eight square miles (55.7%) has been eradicated. Red

areas in these photos show sections burned out by the B-29s.

available photo coverage, 175 square miles of urban area

were wiped out. Here is what the Tokyo radio announced

on 23 August concerning casualties from ai r attacks in the

home islands; 260,000 killed; 412,000 injured; 9,200,000

homeless; 2,210,000 houses demolished or burned, and

another 90,000 partially damaged. Though these figures

may not be entirely accurate, they compare favorably with

estimates of our analysts who say that housing for

10,548,000 persons was destroyed. This is 50.3 per cent of

the 1940 population in the 69 cities. Considering that half

the population in the industrial centers was de-housed, the

effect this had upon labor morale and absenteeism must

have been enormous. The completeness of the chaos was

reflected in the breakdown of all administrative controls.

Workers, lacking orders from higher up, were hamstrung.

Wide variations exist in the percentages of pre-attack

industrial area damaged within the 69 cities_ Fukuoka, with

only .6 per cent, Takamatsu with 89.3 per cent represent two

extremes. Damage to residential structures ranges from

9 .1 per cent for Nishinomiya to 98.2 per cent for Toyama.

Impressive as these figures are, again they fail to tell the

whole story. The " planned target area" was much smaller

than the built-up urban area in nearly every case. Thus,

after the last great fire mission to Tokyo on 25 May, some86 per cent of the " planned target area" had been elimi

nated. Small wonder that a newspaperman could write,

"Superfortress report of damage in Tokyo were not exagger

ated; if anything, they constitute the most shocking under

statement in the history of aerial warfare."

Yokohama War production slumped after "day burn job"

on 29 May. Built-up area has been 57.6 per cent destroyed.



Tokyo Proving ground for AAF's technique of medium

altitude night incendiary bombing, the Jap capital suffered a

Osaka 20th AF ignited conflagrations that consumed 35_1

per cent (17.64 sq. mi.) of Japan's second industrial city.

lo ss of 56.34. square miles (39.9%). Industrial Kawasaki at

far left had 35.2 per cent devoured by the B-29 fireworks.

Nagoya Fire bombs ripped the war industries of this big

arsenal to bits. Gutted was 40 per cent of the city proper.



92

B-29 PAYOFF co",iltlletl

IFIT WEREU. s.I f th e 69 U. S. cities on th e .

map a t th e right hao heen ballcreo

hy .lap bombers free 10 . trike an y

lime a no an ywh ere at will in thi s

CO lllltr y, YOll call vivid ly imagin e

th e fri ghtful impac t it would have

had upon ou r moral e and wa rpot entia l. Yet this is prec isely

what the B-29s did to Japan . And

hecau se of the very constricted

na tu re of that country- 55 per

cent of ou r popu lation squ eezed

into a land onl y four per cent our

s ize (approximately the same a rea

as Montana)- th e effects were in

finite ly more disas trous than they

wou ld have been in our case.

Th e co mpari son here is mad e on

a bas is of 194,0 census fi gures.

[n each ca e a U. S. city is paired

with a Japanese city (in red ) of

approximately the same popula

tion. Th e percentages (also in

reo ) of Ja pan ese cities des troyed

o r hadl y damaged are th e esti

mates of ou r inte lligence anal ysts.

Th ey show on Iy the resul ts of

Twenti eth Air Force incendiary

and high explosive attacks on th e

huilt-up urban .areas of Ja pan , ex

cluding results of one-plane B-29

t r i k e Nav y,

Fifthand Seve nth

Air Force attacks .

Th e U. S. citi es were chosen

to give a broad represe ntation

throughout the nati on. No a t-

tempt was mad e to ma tch cities in

le rms of th eir industrial impor

lan ce. Natural ly, if the .laps had

been abl e to bomb th e hear t of our

war industry, they would have in

clud ed among th eir ta rge ts such

places as Detroit , Philade lphia

and Pittsburgh.

Tok yo radi o on 23 August an

nounced a list of 42 citi es which

had suffered ove r 50 per cent loss

of buildings by fire to ai r al tack.

The broadcast named 15 citi es, in

cluding Osaka and Nagoya, in

which, according to our es tim a te-.

less than 50 per cent wa destro yed.

Of the 46 larges t Jap cities, 36

we re hit hy R-29 fire bomhing.

SPOKANE MOIl l3.H •

KAWA SAKI 35 2;

. SACRAM[NIO KOCHI 55.2 -<:

. ST OCkION IMABARI63 9;

.sAN IOS[ SHIMIZU 42 1'1

SUCH OKAYAMA 68 9

. 8um TOKUYAMA 483 >;

•SAl! LA ECITY WAKAYAMA

. TUCSON KUWAHA 15 ;

pumo UWAltMA 542 •

•ANTE FE OMURA 33 H



DULUTH MATSUYAMA sc- •

lIADISPN NAGAOKA 64

SIIUX fAllS· ISWKI 56.1 ::C . •ENOSIIA

WATERLOO SAGA 44.2 :

•XUMAGAYA

• CHICAGO· • A RON NAGASAKI 35 6SIOUX CITY UTSUNDMIYA (3 ) .• OSAKA 35 .1.

• DA¥ERPOITDES MOIN[S GIFU 69 .6:; MIYAZAKI 26.T.

WH[[l/NG CHDSHI U 2 '

•IlAHA SNDAI 219-;; •

LlNCIInI DKAIAKI 3221 •PEORIA HIMEII 494.

• SPRIHGfI[lD ICHINOMIYA 563:

• SAINT JOSEPH ·OIlA 282 :

•TOPEKA TSU 69 Jh

•TULSA TOYOHAS I 619:

•OKUHOMA CITY SHIIUOKA 6 T;

•LITTlE ROCK HIUCHI 11:

•FORT WORTH SAKAI 482 -;

•WACO NUMAIU 42.3-;

•SAN ANTONIO YAWm 21.2 %

• DDlETOWN T S U ~ U G A 65.1 ;.;

LEXINGTON AKASHI 50.2 ,

EYAHSVIUE FUKUI BS-;; •

•

•NASHYILU SASEBO 1/ 4:

KHOXYllli TAKAMATSU 61.5;;

•

CHATTANOOGA TOYAMA 95.6U

RICHMDND •KAGOSHIMA 63 . -:-

•REENSBORO lllYAKONOIO 26 5

CHARLOTTE YOKKAICHI 33 6 ;

•

AUGUSTA HOBEOKA 2 -

MACON FUKUUMA BO 9X

•COlUIt.US UIlYAMAOA 413 -:..

•IIONTGOItERY AOMORI

C A M ~ I D G [ NISHINOMiU Ifg ,::.

HARTFORDHAMAMATSU 603;:

•

93



Part 7ATOM BOMBTwo Jolts Open New Mili tary Vistas

With two shuddering jolts, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

the war skidded to a halt. Soldier s the world over, their

jaws agape, began to wonder how the sudden crazy shift of

military values would affect the familiar patterns of conflict.

A few things are clear. The atom bomb will not, at one

blast, wipe out navies or ground armies, as has already

been widely proclaimed. That it will change them almost

beyond recognition is without question. But they will re

main. Warfare has existed in many forms since men first

banded together to destroy men, but it has always been

waged in all the elements over which man had some control

-o r , more correctly, in which he could move freely. For

a long time al l battles were on land. Later they were on land

and water. When man began to exercise control over the air,

war moved into the ai r too. There now remains only "under

the ground." It may be that atomic power will force future

military strategists to fight in that dimension also. But they

will never fight in that, or any dimension, alone.

Since atomic explosives were first used by the Army Air

Forces, and used conventionally (i.e. in the form of a bomb

dropped by conventional methods from a conventional air

craft), it may seem that ai r will be less affected than land

or water. This is not so. The single fact that atom bombs

are 2,000 times as powerful as ordinary bombs eventually

will make present-day ai r forces obsolete. Until now they

have depended largely on size fo r their ability to crush a city

or an industrial system. In the future a handful of planes will

theoretically do the same job- provided they can get to the

target. The inevitable improvement of antiaircraft defenses

will probably force future bombers to Ay at great heights

and speeds. The aircraft we know cannot Ay as high (even

with the reduced loads made possible by atomic explosives)

or as fast as theory already requires. If improved ground

defenses or air defenses do not demand increased altitudeand speed, improvement in the efficiency of atomic explosives

probably will, to ensure that a bomber is not caught in its

own bomb's blast. All this will mean fundamental changes

in the design of aircraft. These may be so difficult to engineer

(for example, getting adequate lift out of a supersonic air-

Second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 Aug

ust. Its explosion sent a column of debris and dust, topped by

a cloud of white vapor , boiling to a height of 45,000 feet.

foil) , or the destructive capabi lities of future fighters may

be so great that the remote control of weapons resembling

the German V-2 may be resorted to. Natura lly, all this will

not occur over night. We will continue to manufacture and

use conventional equi pment for some time. But, it will not

be long before our present ai r force will seem as curious as

the lumbering triplanes of the last war. In the words of

Britain's Air Chief Marshal Harris, "I n World War II the

battleship was the Dodo_ In the next war-if there is one

the heavy bomber will probably be."

Consider for a moment the simplicity of military organ

ization and effort required to wreck two large Japanese cities.

The two bombs which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were

dropped by the 509th Composite Group, part of the 313th

Wing of the Twentieth Air Force. It had its own Troop

Carrier Squadron, Ordnance, and Technical Service De-

tachment, nothing else except about a dozen scientists who

arrived in Tinian on 4 July. The Hiroshima mission was

Aown on 5 August. Two planes participated in it, one to

carrythe bomb, the other to act as escort.

Itwent offwithout a hitch. Bombing was visual. On the second mis

sion, the same two planes participated, but their roles were

reversed. This time weather caused a great deal of trouble.

According to Major Charles W. Sweeney, pilot of the plane

with the bomb, "The navigator made landfall perfectly.

We passed over the primary target but for some reason it

was obscured by smoke_ There was no flak. We took another

run, almost from the IP . Again smoke hid the target. 'Look

harder,' I said to the bombardier, but it was no use.

"Then I asked Commander Frederick Ashworth (Naval

adviser to the project) to come up fo r a little conference.

We took a third run with no success. I had another confer

ence with the commander. We had now been 50 minutes over

the target and might have to drop our bomb in the ocean.Our gas was getting low-600 gallons were trapped. We

decided to head for Nagasaki, the secondary target. There

we made 90 percent of our run by radar. Only for the

last few seconds was the target clear."

Back at Tinian, crew members claimed that they were no

more worried over dropping atomic bombs than any other

type. Lt. Jacob Beser, the on Iy man to fly on both missions,

went to bed but was roused by his friends to go to a dance.

Three hundred nurses had just arrived at Tinian and all

wanted to dance with him. He had quite an evening.



Six stages in atomic test exp losion in New Mexico are

shown above. Start of reaction (first three pictures) is

HIROSHIMA BEFORE"" Built on the carpet.Aat

delta of the Ota riyer.

Hiroshima, (pop. 336,485 ) was an ideal target fo r the bla t

of an atomic bomb. An important army transport base, it

characterized by instantaneous release of an enormous

amount of heat , and light of an unearthly brilliance. Nature

conta ined large ordnance , food and clothing depots, also a

shipbui lding company, several rayon and textile mills. a

railway station oil sto res and an electrical works. It was

Japan 's seventh la rgest city. Destroyed area is outlined.



of small granular disturbance growing and disappearing incenter of explosion bas not been revealed, may be steel tower

HIROSHIMA AFTER" istory's ~ r s t a t o ~ bomb

" exploded In the ai r over

the center of Hiro hima. wiping out 60 percent of the city

in a few seconds. Only the strongest stone and brick build·

ings withstood the withering blast which stripped all leaves

from trees, and turned house, shrine, automobile and citizen

to dust. Factories collapsed, so did bridges. Japs state that

70,000 people were killed, 75,000·200,000 others injured.



AI01 IOIB continued



From near at hand, Hiroshima appears as a toy city . .ruthlessly trampled on. Bridge is same as at bottom of pic-

ture below. Both photos are looking towards the southeast.

Center of Hiroshima was obliterated by first atomic bomb.

aiming point was bridge fourth from top in center. Same

bridge is shown at right in photograph on opposite page.•



Lije goes on in ramshackle shanties built out oj Nagasaki's rubble.

Mitsubishi sleel works (a lso shown, top opposite) was gutted by second atomic

homb which proved to be even more destructive than the first one at Hiroshima.



Part

8FINALE

With or without Atom B o m b ~ Japan Was Through

Although some Japanese have been trying to sell the

world on the idea that it was the atomic bomb and Soviet

war declaration which forced them to surrender, there is

now abundant evidence to the contrary, much of it from the

lips of high-ranking and informed Japanese themselves_ The

following testimony tells with stunning emphasis that Japanwas utterly finished as a war-making nation before the first

atom bomb was dropped_

The most interesting and most complete statement comes

from Prince Higashi-Kuni, speaking before the Japanese

Diet on 5 September : "Following the withdrawal from

Guadalcanal, the war situation began to develop not always

in our favor. Especially after the loss of the Marianas

islands the advance of the Allied forces became progressively

rapid while the enemy's ai r raids on Japan proper were in

tensified, causing disa trous damage that mounted daily_

" Production of military supplies, which had been seri

ously affected by curtailment of our marine transportation

facilities, was dealt a severe blow by this turn of the war

situation, and almost insuperable difficulties began to multi

ply, beginning with the spring of this year __ . With the

loss of Okinawa and the consequent increase in the striking

power of the enemy's air forces, even communications with

the China continent were rendered extremely hazardous .. .As regards railway transport, frequent air raids, together

with depreciation of rolling stock and equipment, brought

about a steady lowering of its capacity and a tendency to

lose unified control . . . Moreover, various industries suffered

directly from air raids which caused huge damage to plants

and lowered the efficiency of workmen. Finally the country's

production dwindled to such a point that any swift restora

tion of it came to be considered beyond hope." On 14 Sep

tember, Higashi-Kuni further said, "The Japanese peopleare now completely exhausted." He estimated that there

were 15,000,000 unemployed in the home islands, and called

the Superfortress attacks the turning point in the war.

Rear Admiral Toshitane Takata, ex-Deputy Chief of Staff of

the Japanese Combined Fleet, also saluted the B-29: "Super

fortresses were the greatest single factor in forcing Japan's

Musashino aircraft engine plant in outskirts of Tokyo

was wrecked principally by HE precision strikes. At peak

of production it was making 2,800 radial engines a month_

surrender. These planes burned out Japan's principal cities,

reduced military production by fully 50 percent and affected

the genera l livelihood of the Japanese people."

On the sudden cessation of enemy air activity after the

end of the Okinawa campaign, General Kawabe, Command

ing the Japanese Army Air Forces, had the following tosay: " It was to combat invasion that we hoarded all our

aircraft [5,000-plus planes remained operable at war's

end], refused al l challenge to fight the Third Fleet, the

city-destroying Superfortresses , and the hard-hitting FEAF

which was blasting targets on Kyushu during the last six

weeks of the war. But while we waited, the air war was

carried to such extremes of destruction, including use of the

atomic bomb, that the Emperor decided to capitulate on the

basis of the Potsdam Declaration." When questioned abou t

Kamikaze, Kawabe replied, "We had to do it that way. We

had no other way to use our pilots_"

One of Tokyo's district fire marshals, when interviewed

by an IMPACT editor, stated :"A

fter the first big incendiaryattack I realized that ou r system of fire prevention was

utterly helpless in stemming attacks of such magnitude."

Among industrialists, war manufacturer Chickuhei Naka

jima stated that Japan had been so wrecked by bombardment

that it would take from two to five years for her to get back

on her feet, but only if trade with the U. S. was resumed

instantly. I f not, "even the bare essentials of life cannot be

produced."

In the following weeks, more of the same, in greater

detail , will be forthcoming as our interrogation crews com

plete their work. But this further testimony will only reiter

ate what we already know-that blockade and mass bombing

have demolished Japan. The effects of this double attack

piled up so fast in the closing days of the war that manyJaps, especially troops overseas, were not even aware of the

imminence of catastrophe. The following statements, by

three POWs taken shortly before the end and speaking in

all sincerity, illustrate this point: "Bombing will have no

effect on the people except to instill greater hatred toward

the Allies." " Japanese resistance will become stronger as the

bombings increase." "Bombing alone will not bring about

capitulation_" The Tokyo radio station which put out a

la rge part of the misinformation on which such remarks

were based is Station JOAK.

10



Hyuga, one of two 30,OOO-ton battleships modernized by . .the Japs in 1937, now lie wallowing in the mud of Kure

aval Base, riddled from incessant carrier plane strikes.

Tokuyama naval fueling station was the aIde t and ec

and largest used by the Jap navy. Both it and an adjacent

synthetic oil plant were razed by B-29 HE attack •



Mitsuhishi airframe plant in Nagoya was hit by . .the B-29s three times_ After th e last an incendiary attack

by the 314th Wing, it was near l y 70 percent destroyed.

Mitsuhishi al e engine plant, also in Nagoya, was hi t

seven times, finished the war only six pe rcent intact It for

merl y produced 40 percent of all Jap combat al cengine s_ •



3-ACRE

106

MITSUBISHI SKELETONThe Mitsubishi aircraft complex was one of the largest in the

world. It included the engine plant shown above and a



bottom of previous page, also the airframe plant shown at

top of previous page. The latter wa s bigger than WiJlow Run

and assembled a fifth of all Japan 's combat aircraft. Both

factories were burned to cinders by B·29 incendiary attack.

107



Musashino aircraft plant (also shown on page 102) was most bombed an d most missed of all Japanese targets.

Musashino was divided into two part . Part shown below,

built of reinforced concrete, was relatively undamaged.

Musashino East, the destroyed half, was standard saw

tooth affair. Crater below was made by one 4,OOO-pounder.



Pinned down by American air power, lap planes on Atsugi were squashed by collapse of wooden hangar.

ATSUGI AIRFIELDFirst c lo se look many Ameri·

can got of Japan was when

they landed a t this fighter base 32 miles from Tokyo. It was

r;overed with planes. some of them wrecked, many in good

Tunnel entrance leads to one of maze of co rridors which

litera ll y honeycombed ground beneath Atsugi's runways.

condit ion. But th e genera l impression was that the Japs

had a junky. tinn y ai r force. It seemed as if they had been

trying to fight a Tiffany war with Woolworth merchandise.

Even maintenance was shoddy. typical of Jap fields.

Atsugi's tunnels were used as a vast sto rage depot for

food. clothes. ammunition, machine tools and a ircraft parts.

of a beaten air force was assembled on Atsugi, including well-ventilated Navy Jacks below.



FINALE rOllt il l l letl

Shizuoka, city of 206,200, was 66 per cent destroyed by on e fire attack which also got a vital propeller plant.

Hitachi wa one of four sma ll cities fired by B-29s on 20

July, was 78 per cent destroyed . Nothing remains over most

of its area but charred husks of flimsy houses . Fields or gar

dens have prevented spread of fires to factory (upper right).



Factory at Kutlamatsu was gutted by incendiaries on night of 15-16 July. Only chimneys withstood the fire.

On e "home" factory among many thousands exterminated

in Yokohama shows what fire did to Ja ps' sweatshop industr y.

Home owners in Yokohama have been li vin g in tin and

la th shacks constru cted from what th e B-29s didn't bum.

impact - air victory over japan

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