After The Battle 133 - The Air War For Rabaul

THE AIR WAR FOR RABAUL

Number 133 3 3

9

770306

154080

£3.95

NUMBER 133 © Copyright After the Battle 2006 Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey Editor: Karel Margry Published by Battle of Britain International Ltd., The Mews, Hobbs Cross House, Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow, Essex CM17 0NN, England Telephone: 01279 41 8833 Fax: 01279 41 9386 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.afterthebattle.com Printed in Great Britain by Warners Group Publications PLC., Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH. After the Battle is published on the 15th of February, May, August and November. LONDON STOCKIST for the After the Battle range: Motorbooks, 33 St Martin’s Court, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4AN Telephone: 020 7836 5376. Fax: 020 7497 2539 United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution: Lakeside Publishing Services Ltd, Unit 2, Rich Industrial Estate, Devon Street, London SE15 1JR United States Distribution and Subscriptions: RZM Imports Inc, 151 Harvard Avenue, Stamford, CT 06902 Telephone: 1-203-653-2272 Fax: 1-203-965-0047 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.rzm.com Canadian Distribution and Subscriptions: Vanwell Publishing Ltd., PO Box 2131, 1 Northrup Crescent, St. Catharines, Ontario L2R 7S2. Telephone: (905) 937 3100 Fax: (905) 937 1760 Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136 E-mail: [email protected] Australian Subscriptions and Back Issues: Technical Book and Magazine Company, Pty, Ltd., 323-331 LaTrobe Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000 Telephone: + 61 3 9600 0922 Fax: + 61 3 9640 0055 E-mail: [email protected] New Zealand Distribution: Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, P.O. Box 24486, Royal Oak, Auckland 1030 New Zealand. Telephone: 021 627 870 Fax: 9-6252817 E-mail: [email protected] Italian Distribution: Tuttostoria, PO Box 395, 1-43100 Parma. Telephone: ++390521 29 27 33, Fax: ++390521 29 03 87 E-mail: [email protected] Dutch Language Edition: SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 282, 6800 AG Arnhem. Telephone: 026-4462834 E-mail: [email protected]

Rabaul town lies at the north-east tip of the large island of New Britain in the Bismarck Archipelago in the South Pacific (see the map on page 15). Built on a reclaimed mangrove swamp, within the caldera of a large volcano, its name means ‘mangrove’ in the local Tolia language. The town was set up in the beginning of the 20th century by the German Empire to become the new capital of what was then the German colony of Deutsch Neu Guinea. Rabaul fell to Australian forces on September 11, 1914 — Australia’s first action of the war. After World War I, New Guinea became part of the British Empire and Rabaul became the capital of the Territory of New Guinea, being governed by Australia under a League of Nations mandate. The Australians further developed the town, its natural harbour making it an ideal port. This is Mango Avenue, Rabaul’s main street, as it looked before the war. (AWM) When the Pacific War broke out, about 1,000 Europeans and another 1,000 Chinese lived in Rabaul, located at the eastern end of New Britain Island in the South Pacific Bismarck Archipelago. Indigenous peoples in the town and environs brought the population up to around 8,000. The town itself was mainly located on the northern and eastern shores of Simpson Harbor since the Malaguna ridges left little room for establishments on the western shore. Rabaul served as the capital of New Guinea — the former German colony made up of north-east New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, the Bismarck Islands and Bougainville — which the Australians had captured at the beginning of World War I and administered under man-

date from the League of Nations. Because of the 1937 volcanic eruptions, plans had been made to move the capital to Lae on the Huon Gulf of New Guinea, but the war intervened and Australian officials were still located in the government houses in the north-eastern section of town. Given its location and harbour, Rabaul was also a commercial centre with the two big South Pacific trading companies, Burns Philp and W. R. Carpenter, dominating the town’s commercial life. But the Chinese, located in Chinatown in the north-eastern section of town, were also active in commerce and in fact owned the two largest buildings in town, the Cosmopolitan and Pacific Hotels.

CONTENTS THE AIR WAR FOR RABAUL

2

WRECK RECOVERY Aichi D3A ‘Val’ Recovery 34 WAR FILM They Were Not Divided 38 IT HAPPENED HERE Rückmarsch 46 Front Cover: A Japanese Type 96 25mm twinmount light anti-aircraft gun surviving in the bush at Tavui Point, north of Rabaul town, on New Britain in the south Pacific. (Steve Saunders) Centre Pages: The wreck of a Japanese Aichi D3A ‘Val’ bomber enduring in the waters off Cape Markus in New Britain. Lost in December 1943, it was not discovered until 2001 and still holds the skeletal remains of its two-man crew. (Blair Nixon) Back Cover: The Australian Memorial at Rabaul features a cairn in remembrance of the Montevideo Maru, a Japanese cargo ship which sailed from Rabaul in June 1942 carrying 845 Allied prisoners of war and 208 civilian internees. The ship was torpedoed off the Philippines on July 1 and sank with the loss of all on board. (Steve Saunders) Acknowledgements: The Editor would like to express his special thanks to Steve Saunders of the Rabaul Volcanic Observatory who, together with Neville Howcroft, Zanchie Roberto and Toea Chan, took the aerial comparison photos for the Rabaul story. He also thanks Steve for taking several additional photos on the ground. Furthermore, the Editor is very grateful to Phillip Bradley and Gail Parker for providing other Rabaul photographs from their own collections. Photo Credits: AWM – Australian War Memorial; BA – Bundesarchiv; USNA – US National Archives; USNHF – US Naval Historical Foundation.

2

Ringed as it is by active volcanoes, Rabaul has always been and still is vulnerable to eruptions. Back in 1878 an eruption had caused the formation of a new cone, Vulcan, on the south-west side of the harbour. In 1937 two of the volcanoes, Tavurvur and Vulcan, erupted killing 507 people and causing enormous damage. The air raids of the war years caused further damage but the town was rebuilt after the war. Then on September 19, 1994, particularly heavy eruptions of Tavurvur and Vulcan destroyed Lakunai airport and covered most of the township with heavy ashfall. The majority of the buildings in the eastern half of town collapsed due to the weight of the ash on their roofs. The ruins of the wrecked town were mostly bulldozed flat and the area is now reverting back to bush. Only a handful of undamaged and a few interesting derelict buildings remain today. This last eruption incidentally also prompted the relocation of the provincial capital to Kokopo, located on the coast some ten miles to the south-east, at a safer distance from the volcanoes. (Day)

Captured by the Japanese in January 1942, Rabaul was turned into a strong naval and air force base, soon establishing itself as the keystone of Japanese presence in the south-west Pacific. By 1943 some 110,000 troops were based there. This picture, taken in September 1945 after the Japanese surrender,

shows the town, part of Simpson Harbor and three of the five volcanoes that encircle the town (L-R): Mother (local name Kombiu), South Daughter (Turangunan) and Tavurvur (Matupit). In the foreground of Tavurvur lies Lakunai airfield. (AWM)

THE AIR WAR FOR RABAUL Mango Avenue and Casuarina (Yara) Street were the main north-south thoroughfares on the eastern side, Mango Avenue eventually turning into Sulphur Creek Road that continued on south to Lakunai Airport and Matupit Island. Malaguna Road constituted the main east-west avenue running just behind the waterfront buildings and forking at the western edge of town. Tunnel Road, named for the tunnel the Germans had driven through the ridge, veered west across the narrow neck of land to the sea. Kokopo Road ran south, skirted the harbour and Karavia Bay and continued along the shore to Kokopo (called Herbertshöhe when New Guinea was a German colony) and Vunapopo, a Catholic mission centre. Rabaul was — and is — both picturesque and dangerous. It sits on the rim of the caldera of an ancient volcano. The harbour, one of the finest in the South Pacific, was formed when part of the southern rim had collapsed. Extinct volcanoes ring the town, Mother (2,257 feet) and the lesser North Daughter and South Daughter forming the skyline that is so distinctive from the air. The danger comes from Tavurvur, just across Matupit Harbor from Lakunai, and Vulcan on the western shore of the harbour that had first appeared as an island. Both exploded in 1937, Vulcan cone attaching itself to the shore. In 1941, Tavurvur erupted once again and when the Japanese landed, was still pouring smoke and ash into the sky. Flight Petty Officer 1st Class (PO1c) Saburo Sakai who arrived from Bali in April 1942 with the Tainan Naval Air Group (Kokutai) wrote that ‘if Bali had been paradise, then Rabaul was plucked from the very depths of hell itself. There was a narrow and dusty airstrip which was to serve our group. It was the worst airfield I had ever seen anywhere.

Immediately behind this wretched runway a ghastly volcano loomed over 700 feet into the air. Every few minutes the ground trembled and the volcano groaned deeply, then hurled out stones and thick, choking smoke.’ Both Rabaul’s strategic location and potential military assets were known in Washington and Tokyo for years before the war broke out. In the 1930s, American planners working on various revisions of the plan to advance across the Central Pacific and engage the Japanese in a Mahan-type decisive battle— War Plan Orange — briefly considered using Rabaul for a southern approach. In the fall of 1941 when

By Ronnie Day war with Japan appeared imminent, the Americans and Australians proposed to turn Rabaul into a fleet base with airfields to serve as a link in the aircraft ferry route from Hawaii to the Philippines and officials of both countries inspected the area. But as the military commander in Port Moresby, Australian Major-General Basil Morris, noted in his diary ‘we did the reconnaissance alright as will be seen but the Nips did not give us time to bring the plans to fruition.’

The same view today, photographed by Gail Parker from the car park of the presentday Rabaul Volcano Observatory on the flanks of North Daughter (Tovanumbatir). The ruined eastern half of the town is partly obscured by the palm trees on the left. 3

Map of the Rabaul area showing the ring of volcanoes and the airfields used by the Japanese during the war. The Japanese on the other hand, once the Southern Advance into the East Indies and South-East Asia had been decided upon, had Rabaul as one of their major objectives to be taken along with the Philippines, South-East Asia and the Dutch East Indies during the First Phase Operations. A base there could guard the southern flank of Truk 800 miles to the north, prevent an Allied advance to the Philippines by way of New Guinea, and, if the Imperial Navy could convince the Imperial Army, provide the springboard for a further advance into the South Pacific. The Australian government could do little to defend Rabaul. Its armed forces were fighting with the British and were strewn from the Western Desert to Singapore. On the other hand, voluntary withdrawal was ruled out on the grounds that if the United States was forced to withdraw from the Philippines, the Americans might use it as a fleet base. The negative effect it might have on Dutch morale was also a consideration. So, as was the case on a number of other islands, the forces already in place were left to do the best they could. These forces were meagre indeed. On the ground, the Australians had one battalion, the 2/22nd, some support units and the local militia — the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles — in position from Vulcan to Vunakanau. At the primitive airstrip at Vunakanau, No. 24 Squadron of ten Wirraway fighter/trainers and four Hudson bombers provided the sole air defence. The Japanese, while fully aware of Rabaul’s weak defences, nevertheless struck with overwhelming force. Perhaps their experience at Wake Island a month before had been a lesson (see After the Battle No. 42). Naval land-attack medium bombers and flying boats from Truk began hitting the airfields, wharves, and the few vessels in Simpson Harbor on January 4, 1942. On the 20th Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo with four carriers — Akagi, Kaga, Shokaku and Zuikaku — struck Rabaul, next day hit 4

Kavieng on the north-western tip of New Ireland and Lae on New Guinea’s Huon Gulf, and on the 22nd returned to Rabaul. There were no targets for the Japanese pilots on the second raid since the three remaining Australian aircraft had flown out the day before and the Japanese, anxious to avoid damaging the town, amused themselves by performing aerobatics. Watching from his command aircraft, Commander Matsuo Fuchida, who six weeks earlier had led the Pearl Harbor attack force, wrote after the war that ‘if ever a sledgehammer had been used to crack an egg, this was the time.’

The task of taking Rabaul fell to ViceAdmiral Shigeyoshi Inouye and his Fourth Fleet. Shortly after midnight on the morning of January 23, Major-General Tomitaro Horii’s South Seas Detachment of 5,000 men built around the 144th Infantry Regiment landed, using the glow from Tavurvur as a navigational marker. Heavy and light cruisers of the Fourth Fleet covered the transports. By dawn the Japanese were in control of Rabaul and by noon organised resistance had ended. Some of the Australian troops escaped to the south, others were captured and some executed.

A relic from the ill-fated 1942 Australian defence of Rabaul: a 2-pdr anti-tank gun left by the 17th Anti-Tank Battery near Malmaluan look-out. (Bradley)

Although the Japanese had at first been slow to improve the facilities and defences of Rabaul, by the autumn of 1943 they had four airfields defending the town and harbour. The first was Lakunai, Rabaul’s original airport, on the east side of Even as fighting moved south, the Japanese began work to convert Rabaul into what was to become their major base in the South Pacific. By western standards, progress was slow. In somewhat of an understatement, the Japanese official naval historians wrote in the Senshi Sosho (War History Series) ‘thus, the base of Rabaul was gradually arranged.’ The first priority, of course, was the wharves and the airfields. Vice-Admiral Masao Kanazawa’s 8th Special Naval Base Force (the Japanese unit equipped to operate forward bases) had responsibility for the first, the 7th Naval Construction Unit was to attend to the latter. The Japanese had carefully avoided damaging the port facilities or the town and so the work of the 8th Base Force went forward on schedule. But the damage to the airfields, none of which were in good shape to begin with, was considerable. The 7th Construction Unit immediately began work on Lakunai that, although paved, was in such poor condition that on an inspection trip back in November 1941, Major-General Morris’s aircraft had broken through the surface on landing. Reinforced by half of another construction unit that had been scheduled to repair the strip at Kavieng, New Ireland, as well as by the ground personnel of the aviation units that were on hand, the 7th had Lakunai ready to receive a limited number of fighters by the end of the month, when 15 obsolete Mitsubishi Type 96 A5M4 (‘Claude’) fighters arrived. More aircraft arrived in February as work continued on the field and Australian Consolidated PBY Catalinas of Nos. 11 and 20 Squadrons began almost nightly harassing attacks. On the night of February 27/28 a No. 10 Squadron PBY crew reported that they had bombed Toboi Wharf on the northwestern side of the harbour leaving behind a fire that could be seen from 30 miles. They had actually hit the 7th Construction Unit’s area on the south-eastern side at Lakunai, killing 34 men. In all likelihood this raid was the first lethal Allied air attack on the Japanese at Rabaul.

Simpson Harbor and separated from Tavurvur by the water of Matupit (Greet) Harbor. Built by the Australians before the war, it had an all-weather surface of sand and volcanic ash and was of international standard.

Japanese maintenance men at Lakunai at work on a Type 0 A6M Zero fighter, with Tavurvur looming across the water. Evidently the photograph was taken later in the war than the picture at top since no buildings are left standing at the east end of the airfield. (via T. Harada)

Right: Lakunai remained in service as an airfield after the war, although most of the dispersal areas and taxiways built by the Japanese were turned back to plantation. When Tavurvur erupted in 1994 the airport was buried under several metres of ash and mud flows, and consequently abandoned. This is how the site appears today. (Day) 5

The problems at Lakunai delayed work on the Australian military airfield at Vunakanau about ten miles south of Rabaul. The Japanese engineers had decided that of the two Rabaul airfields only Vunakanau was suitable for basing land-attack aircraft, the older Mitsubishi Type 96 G3M2 (‘Nell’) and the new Mitsubishi Type 1 G4M1 (‘Betty’) medium bombers. But if Lakunai was in poor shape, Vunakanau was worse. The runway was unpaved, the only building had been destroyed in the bombings, and the single road that connected it with Rabaul was unfit for heavy traffic. The Japanese official history, Senshi Sosho, provides few details of the repair and construction at Vunakanau but the first Type 1 aircraft flew in between February 14-17. A year later, on April 6, 1943, Lieutenant Commander Masatake Okumiya, staff officer of the 2nd Carrier Division’s Air Group, travelled by automobile from Rabaul to Vunakanau in a party that included the Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. It was ‘a jolting, mud-splattered journey’, he wrote later and noted that the fighters on the unpaved taxiways preparing to take off for the Ballale Island airfield for the ‘I’ Operation had to rock their landing gear ‘to clear them from the sucking mire.’ With the easy capture of Rabaul, Imperial General Headquarters (IGHQ) in Tokyo took up the matter of ensuring its security. The Imperial Navy was in favour of an allout push in the South Pacific with the objective of neutralising Australia as an Allied offensive base; the Imperial Army, its focus on the Asian continent, was more cautious. On January 29, the debate ended with an agreement to commence offensive action in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands with the immediate objective of taking Lae and Salamaua on the Huon Gulf. Inouye’s Fourth Fleet was assigned the operation and the date was set for March 3. On February 10, Inouye advanced the headquarters of the 24th Air Flotilla (Kokusentai) under Vice-Admiral Eiji Goto to Rabaul. Goto had the newly formed 4th Air Group organised from units drawn from the Chitose, Takao and 1st Air Groups that were equipped with a mixture of obsolete and front-line aircraft — G3Ms and G4Ms, A5Ms and the first-rate Mitsubishi Type 0 A6M2 Model 21s (‘Zero’ or ‘Zeke’). In addition, he had the eight Kawanishi Type 97 H6K4 flying boats (‘Mavis’) of the Yokohama Air Group based in Simpson Harbor. American intelligence, however, was aware of Japanese intentions and sent a carrier task force (Task Force 11 comprising the carrier Lexington with four heavy cruisers and nine destroyers under Vice-Admiral Wilson Brown) to the South Pacific. Brown decided to attack Rabaul on February 21, approaching from the north-east with the objective of achieving surprise. But one of two patrolling Yokohama Air Group Type 97s spotted the Lexington group on the morning of the 20th when it was still almost 500 miles from Rabaul. Lexington’s fighters shot down the flying boat, but with surprise gone, Brown called off the attack, decided to keep on steaming toward Rabaul until sundown to throw off the Japanese and then reverse course. Vice-Admiral Goto was determined to hit the carrier force before it closed to within fighter range of Rabaul and sent off 17 of his 18 Type 1 bombers. They were without fighter escort since the A5Ms were fit only for local defence and drop tanks had not yet arrived for the A6Ms. To make matters worse, aerial torpedoes had also not arrived and so the bombers were armed only with bombs. Lieutenant Commander Takuzo Ito, the group commander (hikotaicho), personally led the formation, riding as observer with Lieutenant Yogoro Seto, 1st Division (Chutai) leader. The 2nd Division under 6

The second airfield was Vunakanau, Also built by the Australians before the war, it still had an unpaved runway when the Japanese captured it. By late 1943, it covered a massive area, with concrete-surfaced runways, dispersal bays, revetments, etc. and was home to many Japanese naval air units, including the 702nd and 751st Kokutai (Naval Air Groups) equipped with G4M Betty medium bombers. Lieutenant Masayoshi Nakagawa found the carrier first and at 1635 radioed that it was about to attack. Nothing more was ever heard — all nine planes of the 2nd Division were shot down by the Grumman F4F-3 Wildcats of VF-3. Shortly afterward, Ito’s division found the carrier and attacked. Lieutenant Edward ‘Butch’ O’Hare shot down three of these and damaged two more. One more fell to another F4F-3. The four remaining Type 1s, all badly damaged, struggled home, two making Vunakanau, but the other two crash-landing short of the airfield, one off the Nurguria Islands, the other in Simpson Harbor. The battle cost the Japanese 15 aircraft and 88 aircrew, including one group leader and two division leaders. The Lexington came through untouched. The virtual annihilation of the 4th Air Group’s bombers gave no pause to the Japanese other than to cause a postponement of the Lae operation for a few days while replacement aircraft flew in. Horii’s South Seas Detachment landed at Lae on March 7, but before the airfield could be

restored and fighters flown in, two American carriers struck the assembled shipping on the 10th, sinking two large transports, two smaller vessels and inflicting heavy damage on several others. As a result, Inouye postponed the Port Moresby invasion until ViceAdmiral Nagumo returned from the Indian Ocean with the carriers and then launched his amphibious operation in early May. Again the American carriers were waiting and in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first carrier battle in the history of naval warfare, turned back the invasion force. Yamamoto’s Midway campaign now forced the Japanese to mark time in the South Pacific. When they returned to the offensive against Port Moresby in July 1942, the Australians, in some of the most savage fighting of the war, fought Horii to a standstill on the Kokoda Trail in the heart of the New Guinea jungle. Meanwhile, in early August, the US 1st Marine Division (reinforced) landed at Guadalcanal, taking the Japanese by surprise and forcing them to meet the new threat and depriving Horii of

The Vunakanau airstrip was kept after the war as an emergency runway in case of eruption. However, during the 1983-85 seismic-deformational crisis the strip was deemed too close to Vulcan for comfort and it was finally abandoned when work on the modern Tokua airport commenced in the late 1980s. The site of the old airfield was taken over by Tolia gardens and is still generally clear. The Volcano Observatory used to utilise the strip to calibrate its EDM (electric distance meter), as it was the only long clear area, outside the caldera, in the province. (Howcroft)

In addition to improving the two existing aerodromes, the Japanese built two new airfields in the near area, allowing them to increase their fighter and bomber strength. Rapopo, any reinforcements (see After the Battle No. 108). The Japanese suddenly found themselves fighting a two-front war in what they called the South-Eastern Area and which the Americans had divided into the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA) under General Douglas MacArthur and the South Pacific Area (SOPAC) under Vice-Admiral William F. Halsey. As the Japanese were sucked into a six months’ battle of attrition on Guadalcanal that ended in the defeat of both the Japanese Army and the Japanese Navy, Port Moresby was relegated to the sideline. Above all, Guadalcanal was a disaster for the Imperial Naval Air Force. ‘If we can get reinforcements’, Rear-Admiral John McCain, Commander Aircraft South Pacific (COMAIRSOPAC), wrote in the desperate days of September when the Americans were fighting to keep Guadalcanal from becoming another Bataan, Guadalcanal ‘can be a sinkhole for enemy air power and can be consolidated, expanded and exploited to the enemy’s mortal hurt.’ Events proved McCain correct. Aircraft losses will probably never be exact, but by the best count available for the Guadalcanal campaign, August 1942 to February 1943, the Japanese lost 682 planes of all types and the Americans 615. While the losses are relatively even, the Japanese could not hope to match the Americans in production. When aircrews are factored into the equation, the Japanese losses increase dramatically relative to the American and spelled disaster to the Japanese Naval Air Force. The Americans by their official count lost 420 men, the Japanese (and this is approximate and conservative) lost 1,088. How many more were lost or rendered ineffective by disease can only be guessed at. During the six months’ struggle 565 miles to the south-east — the very limits of the A6Ms’ operational range — Rabaul served as the main Japanese base of operations. Air group after air group flew into Rabaul only to be decimated in the air war, and then either sent back to a rear area to rebuild or simply disbanded. The Japanese failure to advance airfields south-east has long been recognised by both sides as one of the major factors in their defeat in the air. At Rabaul itself, Lakunai and Vunakanau were improved as far as Japanese capabilities

located close to the shore some 14 miles south-east of Rabaul, was completed by December 1942. It had concrete runways, barracks and repair and supply facilities. (USNHF)

allowed but no new airfields were constructed until 1943 when Rapopo on the coast south of Kokopo was completed in April and Tobera several miles inland from Kokopo in July. A fifth field at Keravat on the west coast was completed by September but never of any use except as a crash strip because of drainage problems. Failure to build advance bases proved fatal. In the Solomon Archipelago where the air war was fought day by day, month by month without any let-up whatsoever, the Japanese only began work on the Buka strip taken from the Australians in the summer of 1942. Not until late August — a week after the American squadrons flew into Henderson Field on Guadalcanal — did the Japanese begin work on Kahili airfield near Buin in southern Bougainville. The arrival of a new model Zero, the A6M3, that had been equipped with a more-powerful engine that

reduced its range (the clipped-wing version, A6M3 Model 32, was at first mistaken by the Allies as a new fighter) forced the hand of the Japanese. Later in the year, when the tide of battle had turned decisively against the Japanese and the Guadalcanal air force had begun to extend its dominion over New Georgia, the Japanese began an airfield at Munda. But the attempt to base aircraft there ended in disaster when in Christmas week Lieutenant Motonari Suho lost 21 of his 24 A6M3s to American attacks. After the war, Suho made a statement to the effect that Munda was a perfect example of the ‘poor ability of the Japanese to build an airfield.’ The Japanese did complete and were able to use an airfield on Ballale Island near Shortland Island off the southern Bougainville coast, but the second airfield completed in the Buin area at Kara came on line in 1943, too late to be of any use.

RAPOPO RESORT

Rapopo airfield has now completely disappeared under new growth. This is the site as it appears today, looking towards the south, photographed by Steve Saunders. We have added the outline of the runway. Rapopo resort is a post-war development. 7

Right: Tobera, located about halfway between Vunakanau and Rapopo airfields and some five miles inland, was not completed until August 1943. It too was surfaced with concrete. Altogether the four airfields had revetments for 166 bombers and 265 fighters, plus extensive unprotected dispersal parking areas. (USNA) By western standards, Japanese engineering and construction was still in the horse and buggy age. The Japanese depended on manual labour — construction personnel, troops, native workers and POWs. The 7th Naval Construction Unit that landed with the South Seas Detachment had a complement of just over 1,300 men under the command of a naval engineer named Tokunaga and was equipped with hand tools, trucks and small rollers. In contrast, the American 47th Naval Construction Battalion (Seabees) that built the fighter strip at Segi, New Georgia, in just over two weeks had four power shovels, 20 bulldozers, two cranes, 59 trucks and a host of other equipment and experienced personnel in every trade related to construction. Japanese Army historians in the Senshi Sosho admitted that before the war broke out in the Pacific no thought had been given to the use of machinery in the building of airfields. As a result of the experience in the Solomons, the Army formed the first mechanised construction unit at Kashiwa airfield in late 1942 and in early 1943 set up a training centre in Toyohashi. But by then it was too late. American intelligence officers must have listened with fascination to a captured Japanese pilot describing the building of Rapopo south of Rabaul where tanks were used to push over the plantation palms after workers had dug a deep trench around the base. Right: The area that used to be the Tobera airstrip is now usually referred to as Gelagela and is a resettlement area for several villages affected by the 1994 eruption. Most of the former airfield is now a coconut plantation, but the airstrip’s old perimeter still forms land boundaries. Our comparison, taken by Steve Saunders in March 2006 looking to the east-north-east, shows the old runway, part of which has recently been cleared to be used as a cocoa seedling nursery.

Japanese airfield construction was primitive and slow, relying heavily on manpower equipped with little more than hand tools. Here native labourers work on one of the Rabaul airstrips, unidentified, but most likely either Rapopo or Tobera. (Kusaka) 8

Remains of Japanese steel planking surviving at Tobera, today the Vunatung Coconut Plantation. (Day)

Right: To protect the harbour facilities and the airfields, the Japanese built up a large concentration of anti-aircraft guns around Rabaul. The organisational set-up was a combined army and navy establishment, well co-ordinated and integrated. Of the 367 AA weapons, 192 were army operated and 175 navy operated. The army units were deployed around Rapopo airfield and around army installations and participated jointly in the defences lining Simpson Harbor. The naval units guarded the harbour and its shipping and the airfields of Tobera, Lakunai and Vunakanau. The heaviest weapon the Japanese possessed was the Type 89 127mm twin-mount, dual-purpose gun, which could open fire at a range of 9,000 metres. This still taken from a 1943 Japanese newsreel shows a 127mm at Rabaul in action during a daylight raid. With the escalation of the fighting for the airfield on Guadalcanal into a major confrontation between the Japanese and the Americans, Rabaul expanded accordingly. In July and August 1942, headquarters of the newly created Eighth Fleet, the Eleventh Naval Air Fleet, and the Seventeenth Army all moved to Rabaul. In a further reorganisation in November of the same year the 8th Area Army (General Hitoshi Imamura) was created with headquarters at Rabaul and Seventeenth (Lieutenant-General Haruyoshi Hyakutake) and Eighteenth (LieutenantGeneral Hatazo Adachi) Armies put under its command. A month later, the Navy followed with the creation of the South-Eastern Area Fleet (Vice-Admiral Jinichi Kusaka) with the Eighth Fleet (Vice-Admiral Tomoshige Samejima) and Eleventh Air Fleet (ViceAdmiral Takaji Joshima) under its control. From the beginning, the Japanese divided responsibility for Rabaul as they did all other aspects of the war. The Navy took the eastern side, using the New Guinea Club and other buildings for headquarters and the Army took the western side, 8th Area Army putting its headquarters at the Four Corners. Likewise the defence was divided. The harbour and Crater Peninsula was the Navy’s responsibility; the Army had the rest, the defensive line running from the Warangoi river on the east coast to the Keravat river to the west and then around the coast to Tavui Point. Coastal guns guarded the sea approaches and Simpson Harbor and the airfields were ringed with anti-aircraft guns. By the time the Japanese defensive peaked in late 1943, the US Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) put the number of coastal guns at 43, anti-aircraft guns of all types at 367, and searchlights at 20. A glance at the map (see overleaf) will show that the configuration of the harbour and the bays at Rabaul was such that the anti-aircraft guns literally put up a circle of fire. Beginning in February and March 1943, radar with a range of 150 km arrived and stations were set up in the Shortlands, at Buka, and at Cape St George. Depending on the route flown by the Allied formations, these stations gave the Japanese 30 minutes’ to an hour’s warning. Restricted by distance and above all resources, the Allies struck Rabaul as best they could. Allied air Forces under MacArthur’s command kept up a continual harassment. These raids, flown at night and often in extreme weather, came at a high cost to the aircrews. On the night of November 16/17, 1942, for example, 12 Consolidated B-24 Liberators of the 90th Bomb Group (H) of the US Fifth Air Force were scheduled to raid Rabaul from their base at

This specimen of the 127mm gun was pictured by a New Zealand Army photographer near Lakunai airfield in September 1945. (AWM)

Right: A nice comparison taken at Sulphur Creek. Today, only one of the 127mm guns in this area remains. Of the others only the concrete platforms survive in the undergrowth. (Day) 9

Left: The most numerous type of anti-aircraft weapon was the Type 96 25mm twin-mount light gun, which had a range of 3,000 metres and was very effective against low-flying aircraft. The Japanese had about 90 of them at Rabaul, this particular Iron Range in the northern York Peninsula, a distance of 850 miles. Taking off in the dark, nine managed to get airborne and then the next in line on the runway clipped another plane, crashed and exploded, killing 11 men and damaging a number of aircraft. Of the nine that flew on individually to the target, one had its bomb bay doors jam, one went down so low to avoid cloud cover that it suffered damage from 7.7mm fire, one failed to find Rabaul altogether, and

one being pictured near the harbour in 1945. (AWM) Right: There are several Type 96s surviving in the bush around Rabaul. This one stands at Tavui Point, north of the city, which was the Japanese submarine base. (Saunders)

another, carrying the group commander and the squadron commander, failed to return to base. While these raids in no way threatened Rabaul’s usefulness as a base, they were more than a gnat’s bite on an elephant’s hide. Rear-Admiral Matome Ugaki, Chief-of-Staff of the Combined Fleet, suffered through two on the night of September 16/17, 1942, during his visit to Rabaul. ‘The noise of gunfire and small arms was terrible’, he wrote in his

diary. ‘Anyway, it was a night of little sleep. Now I can see the effectiveness of night raids.’ He also thought the anti-aircraft fire ineffective, terming it ‘outrageously uncontrolled and unskilled’ and at his suggestion, officers and men from the battleships Yamato and Mutsu were sent to teach the Rabaul gunners. (The instructors must have been good, for the aircrews who had to fly through it later on daylight missions described it as horrible.)

a

a c

VULCAN a a

a

MATUPIT b

MALAGUNA a b a b

a

e d

SULPHUR CREEK

A US air force intelligence sketch from November 1943 highlighting the AA defences in Rabaul and on Lakunai airfield. Indicated are three types of gun — heavy [a], light [b] and multibarrelled [c] — plus searchlight positions [d] and aircraft revetments [e]. Concentrations of heavy guns can be discerned in Malaguna and on the ridge above, the left group of which would have a commanding view of Talia Bay as well, with a 10

couple of other guns on the Beehives Islets (Dawapia Rocks) in the middle of Simpson Harbor and on the hill behind Vulcan crater, at Sulphur Creek and on Matupit Island, and possibly one on the prow of the wreck wharf (see page 14). Light guns are at the eastern end of Lakunai’s runway and on Matupit, and a group of three multi-barrelled guns is to the right of Vulcan crater covering the gap there. (Saunders)

On occasion in these early attacks, however, significant damage was inflicted. In late December 1942 during the Japanese buildup at Rabaul for what began as another attempt on Guadalcanal but ended with the evacuation of the troops there, the worried theatre commanders, MacArthur and Halsey, struck with what they had. On Christmas night, the transport ships Nankai Maru (8,000 tons) and Kagu Maru (7,000 tons) left Simpson Harbor carrying the 17th Construction Unit and building materials for an airfield on Kolombangara. The submarine Seadragon torpedoed the Nankai Maru near Cape St George and while she did not sink, the forward holds were flooded. To worsen matters, her escort, the destroyer Uzuki, collided with the damaged transport and herself had to be taken under tow. And the night was just beginning. Boeing B-17s of the 11th Bomb Group (H) flying from Guadalcanal appeared over the scene and, with extraordinary good luck, damaged the Kagu Maru as well as the destroyers Ariake and Tachikaze that were attempting to tow the disabled ships back to Simpson Harbor. Aboard the Yamato, a disgusted Ugaki confided to this diary: ‘That should be called a case of going to the forest to cut wood and coming home shorn.’ The Fifth Air Force renewed the attacks next night and before the New Year dawned sank 13,000 tons of shipping. But on January 5 when it tried a daylight mission with six B-17s of the 43rd Bomb Group and 12 B-24s of the 90th disaster struck. Two B-17s went down over Rabaul, one of them carrying the commander of the Fifth Air Force’s Bomber Command, Brigadier General Kenneth Walker. After that, the Fifth Air Force returned to night attacks. Like their American counterparts at Guadalcanal, the Japanese attempted to use A6Ms to shoot down the heavy bombers caught in searchlights. They enjoyed even less success than did the Americans. But in November 1942, Commander Yasuna Kozono, then Executive Officer of the 251st Air Group (formerly the Tainan Air Group) came up with the idea of installing obliquely upward and downward firing 20mm machine guns in the twin-engine Nakajima J1N1. The J1N1 had started life as a long-range escort fighter but, when this role did not work out, was used as a reconnaissance plane. The Allies nonetheless typed it as a fighter and gave it the code-name ‘Irving’. Back in Japan while the 251st was being rebuilt, Konozo finally got a reluctant Navy bureaucracy to modify three aircraft and two returned to Rabaul with the 251st in May 1943. On the night of May 21/22, Superior Flight Petty Officer Shigetoshi Kudo shot down two of five B-17s of the 64th Squadron, 43rd Bomb Group (H), and the bureaucrats in Tokyo had a sudden change of heart. For their part, the Americans thought the B-17s had collided. On June 10, a crewman on a B-17 was badly wounded in an attack and the crews reported seeing Japanese night fighters. No attention was paid to the report and on June 13, when another B-17 went down to an Irving, its loss was attributed to anti-aircraft fire. On the night of June 26/27, Kudo shot down two B-17s of the 65th and 403rd Squadrons over Vunakanau airfield and another on the last day of the month earning him the sobriquet ‘King of the Night’. Thereafter, however, night fighter interception over Rabaul virtually ceased. The Japanese had indeed developed a night fighter that was effective against B-17s and B-24s and put it into production as the Type 2 J1N1-S Gekko (‘Moonlight’). But not enough reached Rabaul and those of the 251st Air Group were transferred to the field at Ballale Island to meet the all-out assault on the central and northern Solomons by Halsey’s South Pacific Command forces that began on June 30.

Above: On the night of June 25/26, 1943, during one of the early raids on Rabaul, B-17 41-2430 Naughty but Nice of the 65th Squadron, 43rd Bomb Group (H), was shot down by a J1N1 Gekko night fighter flown by Superior Flight Petty Officer Shigetoshi Kudo, and crashed in the jungle. There was only one survivor, 1st Lieutenant Jose L. Holguin, the navigator, who parachuted out and became a POW. In 1949, the US Army Graves Registration Service visited the crash site and recovered remains of the crew, who were buried as unknowns in a group burial in Hawaii’s Punchbowl Cemetery. In 1981, Jose Holguin, determined to find the wreck and his lost comrades, went back to Rabaul and, during a second trip in 1982, re-discovered the crash site. The US Army’s Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI) — today the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) — investigated the site twice but no further human remains were found. However, as a result of the search, the unknowns in Hawaii were disinterred and re-examined and five of them could be positively identified.

Recovered parts of Naughty but Nice — including the cockpit section with nose art (above) and the controls (below) — are today on display at the East New Britain Historical & Cultural Centre at Kokopo, the provincial capital ten miles south-east of Rabaul. (Bradley)

11

THE ALLIED ADVANCE ON RABAUL Forced to retreat from Guadalcanal and Papua in February 1943, the Japanese fell back on New Georgia and Lae to establish a defence line. According to the Army-Navy Agreement of early January 1943, the Navy had responsibility for the Solomons and was to stand on the defence while the Army had responsibility for New Guinea where the Japanese still entertained hopes of launching another offensive. The Navy was to give full support to the New Guinea operation. Japanese plans came to naught in early March, however, when MacArthur’s air forces annihilated a large convoy bound for Lae in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. In the aftermath of the disaster and perhaps stung by the Army’s accusations that it had not done its part, Combined Fleet staff began planning a major air offensive, named ‘I-GO’, against both Papua and Guadalcanal. Commander-in-Chief Yamamoto himself went to Rabaul where he assembled 419 aircraft drawn from the land-based flotillas and both carrier divisions. Beginning on April 7 and concluding on the 14th, the Japanese attacked Guadalcanal once and the Port Moresby and Milne Bay bases in Papua four times. Some

Rabaul housed many Japanese headquarters, chief among them being that of General Hitoshi Imamura’s 8th Area Army and Vice-Admiral Jinichi Kusaka’s South-Eastern Area Fleet. The navy had its headquarters in the New Guinea Club in north-east Rabaul until late 1943 when it was forced to move underground by the Allied air attacks.

Left: The bombs wrecked the clubhouse building and this is how the Australians found it in 1945. (AWM) Right: The New Guinea Club was rebuilt after the war, and then rebuilt again damage was done, but it did nothing to hamper the Allied build-up. And the price was high. The Japanese lost 12 per cent of the A6Ms, 26 per cent of the Type 99 Aichi D3A carrier dive-bombers (‘Val’), and 18 per cent of the Type 1 medium bombers. The historian of the Type 1, Osamu Tagaya, has written that Guadalcanal became the ‘funeral pyre of the rikko [medium bomber].’ He could have added that it became the funeral pyre of Admiral Yamamoto as well since he was shot down and killed while riding in a rikko to Bougainville to congratulate his pilots for what was believed to have been a successful operation (see After the Battle No. 8). As the build-up at Guadalcanal continued, Vice-Admiral Kusaka of the South-Eastern Area Fleet and Vice-Admiral Joshima of the Eleventh Air Fleet, unaware that the ‘success’ of April was illusory and built on wildly exaggerated pilots’ claims, advocated a second combined operation. But Admiral Mineichi Koga, Yamamoto’s successor at Combined Fleet, refused. Concerned about the American offensive underway in the Aleutians in the North Pacific (see After the Battle No. 62), his main striking force, the 1st Carrier Division comprised of the Shokaku, Zuikaku and Zuiho, was in Tokyo Bay. Left with only the 2nd Carrier Division made up of the light carriers Junyo, Hiyo and Ryuho, and worried about a possible thrust into the Marshalls, he ordered Kusaka and Joshima to carry out the offensive on their own. 12

following the 1994 eruptions. It stands as a landmark to the tenacity and determination of the people of Rabaul to let neither war nor nature drive them away. (Saunders)

The Eleventh Air Fleet duly opened the June offensive (code-named ‘Operation 603’) with a fighter sweep over the Russells on the 7th followed by a second on the 12th and concluding on the 16th with a strike of D3As escorted by A6Ms against shipping at Guadalcanal. As in April, damage inflicted

was light in proportion to the effort and the price exacted even higher — 17 per cent of the 228 A6Ms that participated and 54 per cent of the 24 D3As were lost. Allied aircraft losses (New Zealand No. 15 Squadron fought in these actions) totalled 13 aircraft and six pilots.

Since October 2005 the rebuilt New Guinea Club houses a small museum on all aspects of Rabaul’s history — colonial, cultural and geological. One room is dedicated to the war years, the display including relics recovered from the jungle around Rabaul. (Day)

The concrete shelter near the New Guinea Club is commonly called Yamamoto’s bunker, but the commander-in-chief of the The Japanese offensives, therefore, made scarcely a dent in Allied air power and Operation ‘Cartwheel’ (the code-name for the Allied offensive against Rabaul) opened on schedule. Because of the Germany First strategy that the Allies had adopted and which the Casablanca Conference of January 1943 had reaffirmed, the effort against Rabaul was to be a limited one. MacArthur, who would be in overall command, was to seize eastern New Guinea and Cape Gloucester on western New Britain and Halsey the Solomons up to and including southern Bougainville. In the South-West Pacific, MacArthur’s air commander, Lieutenant General George C. Kenney, who commanded Allied Air Forces as well as the US Fifth Air Force, had 689 Australian, British and Dutch aircraft in the former and 772 in the latter. These included heavy bomb groups of B-17s and B-24s, attack groups of North American B-25s Mitchells modified for strafing, Douglas A-20 Havocs, Australian Beaufighters and fighter groups made up predominantly of Lockheed P-38 Lightnings and Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawks, although some Spitfires were operating in the North-Western Area (Darwin) and Republic P-47 Thunderbolts began arriving later in the year. Most of these aircraft were for use in New Guinea although one American heavy bomber group, several Australian squadrons, one British and one Dutch squadron were kept in the Darwin area to counter the Japanese Navy’s 23rd Air Flotilla at Kendari in the Celebes and units

Imperial Navy never stayed there. In actual fact it was the control centre for Rabaul’s AA batteries and searchlights. (Day)

of the 7th Army Air Force Division at Ambon to keep the Japanese guessing as to Allied intentions. In the Solomons, Halsey had 455 operational combat aircraft out of 533 assigned when the campaign opened in June. These flew under the operational direction of Command Air Solomons (COMAIRSOLS) whose commander rotated every three months among the services involved; during the campaign, Rear-Admiral Marc A. Mitscher (US Navy) served until late July, Major General Nathan F. Twining (USAAF) until late November, Major General Ralph L. Mitchell (USMC) until mid-March 1944 and Major General Hubert R. Harmon (Army) until late April, and Brigadier General Field Harris (USMC) to the end. Major Victor Dykes, a staff officer who wrote a brief history of the command from its creation to near its end in April 1944, recorded: ‘Our private war in the Solomons was a twobit penny arcade compared to the big show going on in Europe. However, for sheer colour, fighting spirit, and a unique little show, there was probably nothing like it on the earth while it lasted.’ Many would agree. Where else would one find Army Air Force B-24s and Navy Liberators (PB4Ys) with a heavy escort of US Army, Navy, Marine and New Zealand fighters carrying out a strike on a Japanese base as part of the same command. Or, as we will see, Navy, Marine and New Zealand fighters making up the first fighter sweep over Rabaul. COMAIRSOLS was made up of five

units: Search and Patrol Command; Bomber Command; Strike Command; Fighter Command; and Photographic Command. A PBY, for example, belonged to Search and Patrol; dive-bombers and torpedo bombers, for another, to Strike. Aircraft if anything were even more varied than in the South-West Pacific Area. By the end of the campaign, the B-24 had supplanted the B-17 in the two heavy groups, the 5th and the 307th, while the single medium group, the 42nd, flew B-25s. For the most part, the Army fighter squadrons were equipped with P-38s and P-40s, but one squadron flew the outdated P-39 Bell Airacobra against Rabaul. Throughout much of the campaign, the New Zealand squadrons flew P-40s. The Marine and Navy squadrons, however, were transitioning to the next generation of fighters at the beginning and by the end were equipped with either Chance Vought F4U Corsairs or Grumman F6F Hellcats. The unglamorous Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bomber that had saved the day at Midway and had dealt death and destruction to Japanese surface forces ever since along with the Grumman Avenger torpedo bombers (TBFs) now used as bombers made up the entirety of the strike force. In addition, at the beginning of the campaign, Halsey’s Third Fleet had the carriers Saratoga and the Royal Navy’s Victorious along with three escort carriers based at Noumea, New Caledonia; by early fall, the light carrier Princeton had replaced the Victorious and the escort carriers had all departed the theatre.

The bunker has a (mirrored) map of the Rabaul area on its ceiling and another, normal map on the wall. (Parker/Bradley) 13

Against this the Japanese could muster a considerable force but one heavily weighted in favour of fighters. When the campaign began, the Eleventh Naval Air Fleet had about 200 aircraft in the 25th and 26th Flotillas, each of the latter usually consisting of two fighter groups and a medium bomber group. The 25th Flotilla had its headquarters at Rabaul and the 26th at Kahili, but the air groups were shifted back and forth among the bases at Buin, Buka, Kavieng and Rabaul. A few days after the battle for New Georgia opened, the 2nd Carrier Division’s roughly 90 aircraft were also sent in to reinforce the Eleventh Air Fleet and most of these went to Kahili. In addition, the Imperial Army had begun committing air force units to the South-Eastern Area as early as December 1942 when the 1st and 11th Air Groups (Hiko Sentai) were sent to help in the Guadalcanal evacuation. In June 1943, the Fourth Air Army, made up of the 6th Air Division at Rabaul and the 7th Air Division that was in the East Indies, was officially activated at Rabaul under the command of LieutenantGeneral Kumai Teramoto. In line with the Army-Navy Agreement dividing responsibility for defence, the 6th Division air groups by mid-summer had shifted to the Wewak airfields — Wewak, Boram, Dagua and But — where they were joined by those of the 7th Division (part of the 7th remained in the East Indies). The Imperial Army Air Force units brought a new variety of aircraft to the South Pacific. The Nakajima Type 1 Ki-43 (‘Oscar’) was the predominant fighter equipping units such as the 6th Division’s 1st and 11th Air Groups and the 7th Division’s 24th and 59th Air Groups. The 68th and the 78th Air Groups of the 14th Hikodan (corresponds roughly to an RAF wing), however, arrived with Kawasaki Type 3 Ki-61s (‘Tony’), the only Japanese aircraft with a liquid-cooled engine. The 13th Air Group was equipped

Above: The first Japanese ship to be sunk at Rabaul was the Komaki Maru, an aircraft transport of 9,156 tons, which was hit by bombs dropped by USAAF B-26s at its mooring along Rabaul’s western shoreline on April 18, 1942. The bombs caused part of her cargo of torpedoes to go up, the explosion tearing off the back half of the vessel and causing damage and mayhem throughout the town. The ship’s remaining half was later filled with concrete to make it into a wharf, which is still in use by small vessels today, and seen on the right in this picture taken by Toea Chan.

The wreck wharf, as seen from the ground. (Bradley)

Left: As part of their development of the port facilities, the Japanese navy brought a floating crane from Singapore to Rabaul. It was bombed and sunk almost immediately after its arrival in Karavia Bay and was never put to use. Karavia Bay is 14

the southern part of Rabaul’s harbour. The picture was taken in October 1945, after the Japanese capitulation. Right: The wrecked barge crane still survives, slowly rusting away on the shore of Karavia Bay. (Parker)

RABAUL

Rather than capturing Rabaul by a direct and no doubt costly assault, the Allies decided to neutralise the enemy stronghold by launching a dual drive past it, thus bypassing and isolating the position. At the same time the threat posed by the fortress was to be reduced by strong and sustained air attacks on the port facilities, airfields and shipping in the harbour. Starting in February 1943, the Americans began with a twin-engine, two-seater fighter, the Kawasaki Type 2 Ki-45 that like the Navy’s Nakajima Gekko was modified into an effective night fighter. The main Army bombers were the Mitsubishi Type 97 Ki-21 (‘Sally’) and the Nakajima Type 100 Ki-49 (‘Helen’). The Japanese classified both as heavy bombers but with a bomb load of around 2,000lbs maximum each was almost the exact equivalent of the Navy’s G4M. By comparison, the B-25 carried a bomb load of 4,000lbs. The Fourth Air Army also had the Kawasaki Type 99 Ki-48 (‘Lilly’) light bomber whose performance was poor. Including the reconnaissance squadrons equipped with the Mitsubishi Type 100 Ki-46 (‘Dinah’) photographic aircraft, the number of Fourth Air Army aircraft is usually put at 500, but this is paper strength and no doubt far higher than the actual number. The 14th Air Group, for example, arrived at Rabaul with 34 Ki-21s, but six of these were lost in the Solomons before the group even moved to Wewak. The 68th Group, for another example, left Truk for Rabaul with 27 of the new Ki-61s, but during the long over-water flight to which the Army pilots were unaccustomed, one group of 13 became separated from the rest. Of these, two turned back, eight crash-landed, two went missing and only one finally made it to Rabaul. American intelligence calculated the number of Fourth Air Army aircraft on the Wewak fields at 225 just prior to the Fifth Air Force’s August raids. (It should be remarked that figures in the Japanese sources are themselves in conflict.) The Allied offensive was scheduled to open on June 30, but due to a Japanese threat to the coast-watcher at Segi where COMAIRSOPAC had already found a suit-

leapfrogging forward, Halsey’s Third Fleet on the right, and MacArthur’s Seventh Fleet on the left. The bombing and island-hopping campaign effectively took Rabaul out of the war. By the spring of 1944, their supply lines cut off and under constant air attack, the starving Japanese garrison was forced to go underground, impotent to do anything else but to await the inevitable end.

able site for an airfield, the occupation of New Georgia actually began on June 23 (see After the Battle No. 98). On the 30th, the main force landed at Rendova and, across the Solomon Sea, MacArthur’s forces seized Kiriwina and Woodlark Islands for airfield sites that reduced the range to Rabaul to 310 and 345 miles respectively and landed another force just south of Salamaua to fix the Japanese at Lae. South-West and South Pacific air forces co-ordinated their efforts as much as possible given the weather and other conditions. Both air forces tended to achieve the best results when they used their various types of aircraft to deliver a combination punch. In August, Kenney’s Fifth Air Force struck heavy blows against the Fourth Air Army at Wewak. A surprise attack on August 17 caught the Japanese parked wing tip to wing tip on the sub-standard fields. The heavy bombers led the attack in the early morning darkness followed at daylight by the B-25s at tree-top level accompanied by a swarm of P-38s. Japanese sources put the losses at 100 aircraft out of 225 on the fields, the air force historians writing in the Senshi Sosho official history attributing 15 to the B-24s and 70-80 to the B-25s. The 14th Air Group had just one bomber operational after the first attack and the 68th had only six fighters. The Fifth Air Force followed up on the first day’s success with a series of raids. COMAIRSOLS, on the other hand, had a tougher adversary in the Japanese base in southern Bougainville, which next to Rabaul itself was the strongest in the south Pacific. The American advance on the ground in New Georgia had been slower than expected, but in early September, with both

Segi and Munda fields operational on New Georgia and timed to keep the Japanese occupied as MacArthur’s forces assaulted Lae, COMAIRSOLS began the all-out suppression of Kahili, Kara and Ballale. The combination punch thrown by COMAIRSOLS was even more varied than the Fifth Air Force’s, on occasion amounting to four or five strikes daily — fighter sweeps, followed by the heavy bombers, themselves followed 15 or 20 minutes later by SBDs and TBFs, and with a heavy fighter escort for all bomber formations. The Imperial Navy pilots fought with skill and determination as evidenced by the losses of the US Thirteenth Air Force. From Pearl Harbor to the end of 1943, the units making up the Thirteenth had lost a total of 653 casualties to all causes of which 39 per cent were killed, 40 per cent missing in action, and 21 per cent wounded. Kahili accounted for 100 of the total since Pearl Harbor. Nonetheless, the daily pounding killed pilots and destroyed planes and wore out the men and machines that survived. Lieutenant Commander Okumiya, who was there, wrote that finally he had to give up even the luxury of taking a bath because ‘frantic movements to extricate oneself from the tub because of flaming tracers soon made us forego even this last moment of relaxation!’ By October 21, not a single Japanese fighter rose to intercept; 26th Flotilla headquarters had retreated to Rabaul on October 11 and the remaining aircraft followed, some to Rabaul, some to Buka. Thereafter COMAIRSOLS planes roamed at will over the deserted bases that were still rendered dangerous by the heavy anti-aircraft concentrations, especially at Kahili. 15

THE BOUGAINVILLE BATTLES A month before the last air battles over Kahili, both the Japanese and the Allies were preparing for Bougainville which was sure to come next. The stakes were big — no less than Rabaul itself. At the Anglo-American conference in Quebec in August 1943 (see After the Battle No. 96), the decision was made to neutralise Rabaul from the air and bypass it so as to allow the Navy to begin its cherished Central Pacific drive. To placate MacArthur, who was always seeking a larger role for himself in the Pacific war, and to tie down Japanese forces, he would swing west along the northern New Guinea coast and secure the approaches to the Philippines. Halsey’s air forces would have the job of neutralising Rabaul and to do this it was necessary to advance the single-engine aircraft to within range. For this reason, MacArthur vetoed Halsey’s initial plan to land in southern Bougainville into the teeth of Japanese strength and ordered it by-passed with a landing farther up the coast. After some investigation, Halsey selected Empress Augusta Bay on the west coast which was lightly defended and where the airfield sites if not good, were acceptable. D-Day was set for November 1 and on October 20 COMAIRSOLS Headquarters moved from Guadalcanal to Munda on New Georgia. General Twining, who had taken over from Mitscher, had a total of 728 aircraft available of all types. While the 97 transports, reconnaissance and photographic planes remained at Guadalcanal, or in the case of the PBYs, Tulagi, the combat aircraft were distributed among 11 airfields from Guadalcanal to New Georgia. The heavy bombers, 79 Army Air Force B-24s and Navy PB4Ys, remained at Guadalcanal along with 45 fighters for defence. Of the medium bombers, 15 New Zealand PV1 Venturas remained at Guadalcanal but the 48 B-25s of the 42nd Bomb Group and the 27 Navy PVs advanced 16

The Allied air offensive against Rabaul began in earnest in October 1943, the series of attacks being opened by the US Fifth Air Force (of MacArthur’s South-West Pacific Command) from bases in New Guinea. On October 12, in what was the largest Allied air attack in the Pacific to date, 107 B-25 Mitchell mediums bombed and strafed Rapopo and Vunakanau airfields, a squadron of New Zealand Beaufighters hit Tobera airstrip, and some 80 B-24 Liberator heavy bombers attacked shipping in the harbour. Vunakanau was the target of all four squadrons of the 345th Bomb Group (M) and two squadrons of the 38th Group (M) — 67 Mitchells in all. Here, in one of the best-known photographs of the air war in the South Pacific, a string of ‘parafrags’ (small fragmentation bombs on parachutes, used to prevent the low-flying bombers from being hit by the blasts of their own bombs) descends on Type 1 G4M Betty bombers in their revetments along the western edge of Vunakanau. This picture was taken from Saturday Nite, the B-25 flown by 1st Lieutenant Charles W. Howard of the 500th Squadron, the last squadron in line of the 345th Group. The Betty on the left, No. 350, belonged to the 5th Chutai (Division) of the 702nd Kokutai (Naval Air Group). Note the wrecked A6M Zero fighter nosed in the ditch at lower left. (USNA)

Close-up of a burning Betty. In all, the strafer attack on the three airfields destroyed some 100 Japanese aircraft, with another 26 shot down in the air. (USNA)

Another belly-camera shot taken during the same strike. Three parachute bombs are about to explode near the Betty in the to the two Russell Island airfields with 27 fighters constituting the defence. The remainder of the combat aircraft advanced to the recently built (or as in the case with Munda, rebuilt and expanded) New Georgia airfields: 48 fighters at Segi; 31 fighters, 100 SBDs and 48 TBFs at Munda; 103 fighters at Ondonga; and 60 fighters at Barakoma on Vella Lavella. For their part, the Japanese had by midSeptember realised that their present defensive line was cracking and after much discussion Imperial General Headquarters redrew the line to run from the Banda Sea through the Carolines to the Marianas. South-East Area — Rabaul, Bougainville and eastern New Guinea — was now outside what the Japanese called the Absolute Defence Line, but IGHQ hoped that the forces there could delay the Allied advance to buy time to build up the Absolute Defence Line. Some of the Japanese calculations were correct, others were badly off. The Japanese rightly assessed Allied air power as around 600 planes for Halsey and 700 for MacArthur. They correctly concluded that MacArthur would assault Rabaul head-on, but did not know that the American Joint Chiefs would veto a ground campaign. But on the fundamental question of when the Americans could launch their offensive, the Japanese erred badly in thinking that mid-summer 1944 would be the earliest date. It was not the first or the last time that the Japanese seemingly could not come to grips with the speed with which the Allies could move or the force with which they would strike. As agreed between MacArthur and Halsey, Kenney began the all-out air assault against Rabaul. By his own account sending

foreground revetment. The hill beyond the ridge to the top right is Mount Varzin, another extinct volcano. (USNA)

everything he had, Allied Air Forces hit Rabaul with over 300 planes on Columbus Day, October 12. Between October 1 and 11 photographic intelligence showed a marked increase in aircraft from about 200 to about 300 (some were replacements, some came from the southern Bougainville fields, and some could have been dummies). Kenney’s planners, therefore, devised a Wewak-style mission with over 100 B-25s and Beaufighters and over 100 P38s going in low to achieve surprise with about 80 B-24s following up higher. The Japanese were caught by surprise and for the cost of four B-24s, one B-25 and one Beaufighter, considerable damage was done. Exactly how much is difficult to pin down. Immediately after the raid, MacArthur as was his habit issued a commu-

niqué that wildly exaggerated Japanese losses at 177 planes destroyed, 51 damaged and shipping losses at three destroyers, three large transports, 43 smaller vessels and 70 harbour craft sunk and three large transports damaged. The actual shipping losses have been established as one large transport, five others of 500 tons or less, and minor damage to three destroyers, three submarines and two smaller vessels. As for aircraft, the most reliable count puts the losses at 15 medium bombers destroyed and 11 damaged. Nonetheless, in his Reminiscences, MacArthur relates that one day after the raid he met Kenney and said, ‘George, you broke Rabaul’s back yesterday’. To which Kenney responded, ‘The attack marks the turning point in the war in the South-West Pacific.’

Right: Our comparison taken by Steve Saunders in March 2006. The row of mature trees running obliquely across left of centre seems to be the one in the wartime shot. 17

For a week, weather prevented further missions although on the 18th over 50 B-25s went on after the fighters had turned back, their commander claiming he did not hear the order, and bombed and strafed Tobera. To finish out the month, Kenney’s forces carried out four large-scale attacks on Rabaul. The attack of October 25 by two groups of B-24s that went in without any escort because of a communications failure probably was the most damaging of all of the Fifth Air Force’s missions. The heavies destroyed facilities at Lakunai, put the runway out of operation for two days, and blew up much of the supply of 25mm ammunition. Kenney got in one more mission on the 29th and then his aircraft were grounded by weather for the next few days. Across the Solomon Sea meanwhile, the decisive battles for Rabaul had begun. Alarmed by the American/New Zealand invasion of the Treasury Islands on October 27, Admiral Koga hesitated no longer and on the 28th ordered the air groups of 1st Carrier Division to Rabaul in what was called the ‘RO’ Operation. But at dawn on November 1, the Japanese carriers were still steaming to their launching point 200 miles north of Rabaul when Halsey’s 3rd Marine Division began landing at Torokina. Vice-Admiral Kusaka sent down 104 fighters and 16 bombers but they were intercepted by the Allied fighters flying cover over the landing area and lost 17 fighters and five bombers. The American transports unloaded without difficulty and were on their way south in the early morning of the 2nd when the flares and gun-fire illuminating the dark and overcast sky to the west caused them to turn east to avoid the naval battle that the US Navy called the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay. On the night of the landing, the Japanese had sent down all available warships, two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and six destroyers under Rear-Admiral Sentaro Omori to destroy the American landing force. 18

The next big attack, and one which produced some very spectacular images, took place on November 2, 1943. Following photo-reconnaissance reports of seven Japanese destroyers, one tender and 20 merchant vessels in Simpson Harbor and a total of 237 aircraft on the airfields, and relying on reports of good weather over the target, the Fifth Air Force hastily organised a new low-level mission, despatching 76 B-25 Mitchells and some 80 P-38 fighters to Rabaul. First to strike were the four squadrons of the 345th Bomb Group whose task it was to screen the main attack by blanketing the Japanese anti-aircraft batteries and bombing the shore installations, first with parafrags and then with white phosphorous bombs. Coming in from the east, over the saddle between Mother and North Daughter volcanoes, the 39 Mitchell strafers of the 345th met both intense anti-aircraft fire and eager intercepting fighters. Leading the attack, the eight B-25s the 498th Squadron swooped in to drop parafrags on the wharves and warehouses along Simpson Harbor’s northern and western shoreline, followed shortly by the nine B-25s of the 500th Squadron with phosphorous bombs. This picture was taken from the tail of one of the 498th left-flank bombers and shows parachute bombs descending on ships along the western docks. Note that one of the vessels is tied up to the Komaki Maru, the sunken Japanese transport ship turned into a wharf. (USNA)

To take the aerial comparisons for this story we asked Steve Saunders, a British geologist who has worked at the Rabaul Volcano Observatory since 1996, to arrange a photo flight. On Sunday, March 12, 2006, Steve, together with his friends Neville Howcroft, Zanchie Roberto and Toea Chan, all suitably equipped with cameras, went up in an Islander aircraft and successfully matched all the wartime pictures. The saddle of Namanula Hill can be seen on the right skyline in both this and the wartime picture.

Above: At the same time, the 501st Squadron, followed by the 499th, turned straight south and dropped their parafrags and phosphorous bombs along the east shore of the harbour, concentrating on the numerous AA batteries along Sulphur Creek and Lakunai airfield. Here a phosphorous bomb from one of the 499th aircraft explodes directly above one of the 127mm heavy twin anti-aircraft gun positions — seen closer up in the enlargement (right). Immediately to the right of the phosphorous blast is the Japanese Volcano Observatory (which they moved to Sulphur Creek in 1942). The smoke seen in the left background is from the phosphorous bombs dropped by the 500th Squadron on Rabaul town. The saddle between the volcano peaks, through which the bombers came in, is at upper right. (AWM) Below right: Another perfect comparison taken by Steve Saunders in March 2006. This area was actually the central part of Rabaul before the eruption of 1994. The old main street (Mango Avenue) can still be seen coming down to the up-market Sulphur Creek and curving off to Malay Town, the post-war Chinatown. But Omori had no combat experience, mishandled his force badly, and was defeated by a light cruiser force under Rear-Admiral Aaron S. Merrill. Merrill had plenty of warning that Omori was coming. Two radarequipped SB-24s of the 5th Bomb Group (H) picked up the Japanese as they left St Georges Channel and one of the Liberators was able to damage a heavy cruiser slightly in a bombing run that produced no hits but some near-misses. The one bright spot in the litany of disasters that attended the ‘RO’ Operation occurred next morning, November 2, in Rabaul’s Simpson Harbor. A daring raid by 76 B-25s and 57 P-38s of the Fifth Air Force — one group coming around North Daughter and the other coming in between North Daughter and Mother — swept into the harbour at masthead level and ran headlong into the anti-aircraft fire of Omori’s warships back from their rout at Empress Augusta Bay. Nine B-25s and nine P-38s went down; a number of others crash-landed at their bases or were so badly shot up that they had to be written off. Thereafter, the Fifth Air Force remembered November 2, 1943 as ‘Bloody Tuesday’. 19

Above: Carrying on, the 501st and 499th Squadrons dropped further bombs on Lakunai airfield. This picture was taken by the rear-looking camera aboard Devil’s Enema, flown by Captain Norman Hyder of the 499th. One of his bombs has just exploded above the end of the runway, scattering particles of burning phosphorus over a G4M Betty bomber and A6M3 Model 22 Zero fighter. In all, 16 aircraft were destroyed on Lakunai during the attack. Simpson Harbor can be seen behind the trees in the background. (USNA) Right: Little now remains of Lakunai, the airfield having been buried by the 1994 eruption. Our comparison was taken from higher altitude to show that most of the area has been turned back to plantation. (Howcroft) Captain Tameichi Hara, better known to the English-speaking world as the commander of the destroyer that had smashed John F. Kennedy’s PT 109 during the New Georgia campaign (see After the Battle No. 9), had looked at the bright sky that morning and as an old Rabaul hand, knew what it portended. He had his destroyer division under way immediately and it was his guns that inflicted much of the damage. After the war he wrote that the battle ‘was the most spectacular action of my life’. MacArthur claimed almost 100,000 tons of shipping sunk or badly damaged and at least 100 aircraft destroyed; all that can be confirmed is a minesweeper and two cargo vessels sunk and several others suffering minor damage and/or casualties. The November 2 attack did, however, practically wipe out the Imperial Army’s shipping headquarters and engineering works. Right: Relics of the air war surviving at former Lakunai: the wreck of a Sally bomber, pictured by Phil Bradley. 20

Above: Next, two squadrons from the 3rd Bomb Group and three from the 38th Bomb Group arrived to hit shipping in the harbour. The effective neutralisation of the AA guns by the preceding 345th Group enabled these waves to come in from the east over Crater Peninsula, circle north of North Daughter volcano, pass over Rabaul town, and then make their runs over

Simpson Harbor — a route normally impossible due to the concentration of heavy AA guns. Here a B-25 of the ‘Grim Reapers’ (3rd Bomb Group) sweeps over one of the Japanese ships at mast-top level. Spouts from its 1,000lbs bombs spring up from the water. (AWM) Below: Steve’s comparison with Rabaul town on the left and North Daughter on the right.

21

A cargo ship, damaged and with its stern half sunk, caught by the tail camera of one of the bombers. In the background, smoke billows up from Rabaul’s blazing waterfront. (USNA)

Smoke billows up from another merchant ship after a direct hit. The damaged vessel seen in the previous picture can be made out at upper right. (USNA)

Above: The 3rd and 38th Groups left a trail of damaged and burning ships in Simpson Harbor. The vessel seen burning in the background is the cargo ship Hokuyo Maru. The one in the centre, with smoke billowing up from a direct hit, was identified as the 10,000-ton Hakusan Maru. In the foreground is the

heavy cruiser Haguro. It had entered the harbour only a short time before the attack and suffered only minor damage. (USNA) Below: Nothing to fear for the ships in Simpson Harbor as Steve makes a low-level pass over the water to match up the wartime shot.

22

‘Hugging the tree-tops, we escaped’. A Mitchell, winging over the caked lava and bushed slopes of Vulcan volcano, speeds out of Simpson Harbor, escaping to the south-east. This picture was taken from the tail of one of the lead 8th Squadron bombers, before the attack by the other four squadrons, so it does not show the full damage wrought in the harbour. Despite attacks by intercepting fighters, smoke over the target, and heavy fire from the warships in the harbour, the raid was remarkably accurate, hits and near-misses being scored by almost all aircraft. In all, 41 ships were attacked, of which 24 were bombed and 17

strafed. However, exact damage assessment proved difficult. The initial communiqué claimed three destroyers, eight large merchant ships and four coastal vessels sunk — a total of about 50,000 tons — and two heavy cruisers, two destroyers, two tankers and seven merchantmen badly damaged. This was later amended to just 13,000 tons sunk and 22 other vessels damaged. Japanese records confirm the loss of just two cargo ships — the 1,500-ton Manku Maru and the 3,100-ton Shino Maru — and the 500-ton minesweeper W-26, and minor damage to a 10,000-ton oil tanker and several other vessels. (USNA)

The shape of Vulcan today is not the same as that seen in 1943, the 1994 eruption having greatly enlarged the cone. Several villages are buried 10-15 metres deep along the course of the new road that today runs along the slope. The same thing had happened during the 1937 eruption of Vulcan when 500 people

were buried in this area. Vulcan, when first formed in 1878, had been an island but the 1937 eruption connected it to the mainland. The 1994 eruption added at least 25 meters to its height. The ash column that year blasted to 18 kilometres high and, once in the jet stream, circled the globe. (Bradley) 23

After the Fifth Air Force’s onslaught, it was the turn of the US Navy to add its share to the further neutralisation of Rabaul and protection of the American landings on Bougainville. On November 5, the aircraft carriers Saratoga and Princeton launched their TBF torpedo bombers and SBD dive-bombers and F6F fighters — nearly 100 aircraft in all — to attack a force of some 40 Japanese warships in the harbour, which intelligence had reported had just arrived from Truk on their way to Another recipient of exaggerated claims was Admiral Koga at Truk. Assured that the American forces had suffered grave losses in the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay on the night of November 1/2 and with 1st Division’s air groups at Rabaul, he saw his chance according to his Chief-of-Staff, Vice-Admiral Shigeru Fukudome, to trap and destroy the American forces at Torokina. Despite Kusaka’s warning that in light of the air attacks, heavy surface units should not be sent to Rabaul, Koga ordered seven heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and their escorting destroyers south under Vice-Admiral Takeo Kurita, commander of the Japanese Second Fleet. Kurita sailed on November 3 and trouble developed quickly. COMAIRSOLS longrange Navy and Army B-24s were on the prowl off Kavieng where two Navy PB4Ys so badly damaged the two large tankers sailing in a separate group that Kurita had to detach Chokai to tow them back to Truk. On the same day, Army B-24s attacked and damaged the transports bringing in the Japanese 17th Infantry Division from Shanghi and later the convoy ran into a minefield that the Australian PBYs had laid off Kavieng and suffered greater damage. Kurita, now facing a fuel problem, pressed on unaware that it was he who was sailing into a trap. ‘Ultra’ decrypts had already warned Halsey that the Japanese Combined Fleet had committed heavy units and coming up from the south at high speed were aircraft carriers of US Task Force 38, Saratoga and Princeton, so as to be in position to strike Kurita’s force when it arrived on the morning of November 5. The weather at Rabaul was clear that morning and visibility unlimited when Kurita’s cruisers arrived. Hara wrote that he 24

Bougainville. Pouring down through a hole in the clouds over Simpson Harbor, the bombers damaged five of the six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and two destroyers. This picture of the Japanese warships under attack was taken from the aircraft of the commander of Air Group 12, Commander Henry H. Caldwell. Moments after this photo was taken, Japanese fighters attacked, killing the photographer and wounding the pilot, but the badly damaged plane made it back to the Saratoga. (USNA)

‘gaped as flagship Atago nonchalantly dropped anchor in the narrow harbour now jammed with seven cruisers and some 40 auxiliary ships’. To the south some 220 miles rain squalls surrounded the American carriers which began launching all available aircraft at 0857 hours — almost 100 planes including all 52 fighters. COMAIRSOLS land-based fighters were already in the air to fly combat air patrol over the carriers while the F6Fs were escorting the 55 SBDs and TBFs to the target. At Rabaul the Japanese received about 30 minutes’ warning and got up 70 fighters to intercept. But the cruisers were still weighing anchor when the SBDs and TBFs swept in maintaining their formation, the Hellcats as ordered sticking close, and only at the last moment in the face of withering anti-aircraft fire did the bombers break into smaller elements for the attack. Private First Class Soichi Morii who was landing from the light cruiser Yubari, which had been sent to pick up the troops of the 17th Division from the convoy that had been attacked off Kavieng, describes in his memoirs what happened after he heard ‘air attack!’ shouted. ‘In the sky on my left, there were bombers that looked like sesame seeds. I saw that our cruisers were using anti-aircraft guns and primary guns. After the airplanes dived, black smoke spread. Blue sky had changed to a black lead colour. A spray of water raised in front of us.’ Morii made it safely ashore for the bombers were after bigger game. Three of the heavy cruisers — Maya, Atago and Mogami — were badly damaged, Maya and Mogami, as Morii put it, ‘in roaring flames’; Takao took a bomb hit on the upper deck and Chikuma suffered minor damage from

near misses. Only Suzuya escaped unscathed. As the American bombers turned away from the target, the A6Ms attacked. The F6Fs picked them up. In the air battle that followed four fighters went down on each side and the carrier group also lost one SBD and two TBFs. Rabaul was in an uproar following the attack. The normally mild-mannered Kusaka was furious and described by Captain Hara as ‘bellowing deprecations at everyone’. Planes were out frantically looking for the carriers. At noon to add to the confusion, the Fifth Air Force bombed the town and wharves in the harbour. Finally late in the afternoon, Japanese spotters sighted what they reported as the carrier task force and at 1515 hours 18 Nakajima Type 97 B5N2 (‘Kate’) torpedo bombers of the 1st Division were dispatched with a fighter escort. The American ‘task force’ turned out to be two landing craft and a PT boat and while the Japanese heavily damaged one of the landing craft, they lost four aircraft as a result. If Halsey had been able to launch another carrier attack quickly after November 5 he might have been able to catch some of the damaged cruisers as they left for Truk under their own power. He had originally requested two carrier groups. However, the bulk of the American fleet was concentrating for the invasion of the Gilbert Islands planned for November 20. Consequently, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, at first refused, then relented and sent down another carrier group, Task Force 50.3 — comprising Essex, Bunker Hill and Monterey — which arrived at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides on November 5. Now, Halsey had another problem, the lack

Six days later, on November 11, the carrier aircraft struck again, those from Saratoga and Princeton having been reinforced by aircraft from the carriers Essex, Bunker Hill and Monterey, with additional striking power coming from Thirteenth Air Force B-24s. Although clouds over the harbour obscured the targets, the torpedo bombers managed to sink one destroyer, Suzunami, and damage the light cruisers Yubari and Agano and the destroyers Naganami, Urakaze and Wakatsuki. Here SBDs are being recovered on the Saratoga after the strike. Note the damage to No. 10. (USNA) of enough cruisers and destroyers to provide escort for both the carrier groups and the convoys making their way to the Torokina beachhead. The carrier strike had to wait until the convoy taking in the 148th Infantry of the 37th Division had completed its mission. When the convoy arrived off Torokina on November 8, the Japanese launched one of the heaviest attacks of the campaign against it. The first strike made by 20 torpedo bombers of the 1st Carrier Division and about 40 fighters was intercepted at noon, before the Japanese reached the transports, by 28 COMAIRSOLS fighters on combat patrol. In the 30-minute air battle that followed the Americans lost seven fighters and claimed 26 shot down. A few Japanese planes made it through to attack the transports that were at anchor unloading but managed to damage only one destroyer. The second Japanese formation began taking off from Rabaul around 1500 hours and was made up of carrier torpedo bombers, a dozen medium land-attack planes and a number of dive-bombers from the Eleventh Naval Air Fleet, and a fighter escort. But heavy rainstorms prevented the Japanese from sighting the transports and instead near dark they stumbled on the cruiser covering force that was steaming in anti-aircraft formation. The light cruiser Birmingham bore the brunt of the attack, taking two bomb hits and a torpedo from a G4M that did serious damage. The Japanese losses from anti-aircraft fire were two fighters, two torpedo planes and five of the Type 1 G4Ms. A third group of four G4Ms and seven torpedo planes left Rabaul around 1900 but failed to locate either the transports or the cruisers. For the Japanese, the attrition rate was unsustainable — and the air war was about to move back north with a fury. His escorts rounded up, Halsey planned to hit Rabaul on November 11, Armistice Day, and so the night of the 10th was a busy one in the Solomons. The two carrier groups were making their high-speed runs to the launching points, Task Force 38 north from just east of Buka, Task Force 50.3 south from just west of southern Bougainville. At the New Georgia fighter fields, tail hooks were being reinstalled on the Navy F4Us and F6Fs of the land-based squadrons so that the fighters fly-

ing cover could land on the carriers and refuel. At Munda, the crews of 47 bombedup B-24s of Bomber Command that had flown in from Guadalcanal late that afternoon were being briefed for the morning’s mission. For the ground crews at the airfields there was no break; as usual they worked through the night. The Armistice Day strike went in as planned (with the exception that Kenney’s scheduled Fifth Air Force mission was cancelled because of weather). Task Force 38 launched first, followed by Task Force 50.3. At the same time, Colonel Marion D. Unruh of the 5th Bomb Group led his B-24s into the air. Over Rabaul, the Japanese had 107 fighters waiting to intercept and worse, for the American formations, Simpson Harbor was completely overcast and a thunder storm was over the harbour’s entrance which made accurate bombing impossible. But the Avenger torpedo bombers coming in low caught the Japanese warships as they made their run for the open water of Blanche Bay. The TBFs put a torpedo into the destroyer Suzunami that sank her, another into the Naganami that left her dead in the water, and another into the light cruiser Agano that sheared off part of her stern. Unruh’s B-24s dropped on the warships but scored no hits

as they broke into the clear. Two dozen P-38s picked up the bombers over St Georges Channel as they headed home. At Rabaul, considerable confusion attended the retaliatory strike against Task Force 50.3 which had been spotted. The original take-off time was set back an hour because Kavieng reported an air raid alarm that prevented the aircraft there from departing. But the telephone between Lakunai and Vunakanau was down and the Lakunai planes, not knowing of the delay, took off and when they did, those from Vunakanau followed. Instead of a planned strike of 106 aircraft only 71 set out for Task Force 50.3. When the Japanese arrived, the American carriers had launched all of their fighters and some TBFs for a second strike and in addition had VF-17 from Ondonga — the only Navy squadron in the South Pacific flying F4Us — flying cover. Lieutenant Commander Tom Blackburn’s ‘Jolly Rogers’, as VF-17 was known, ripped into the Japanese formations followed by the carriers’ own F6Fs. A few Japanese torpedo planes and divebombers got through but not a ship was hit. When the losses for Armistice Day were tallied, Task Force 50.3 had lost 14 planes, Task Force 38 two, and Bomber Command one Liberator. The Japanese admitted to losing 11 fighters and 35 bombers of all types, including all six of the reconnaissance model of the newest dive-bomber, the Yokosuka Type 2 D4Y2 that the Japanese called Suisei (Comet) and the Allies code-named ‘Judy’. The next day, the Japanese called off the ‘RO’ Operation, in effect temporarily conceding Bougainville to Halsey (in early March 1944, Seventeenth Army coming up from the south made an attack on the Torokina perimeter that was shattered by American artillery and air strikes). In the air alone, Japanese losses had been staggering. Of the 173 aircraft that the 1st Carrier Division had advanced on November 1, 121 (or 70 per cent) had been lost. In terms of pilots and aircrew, 89 (47 per cent) had been lost and these included four group commanders and six division leaders. Six days after the shattered 1st Division’s groups rejoined their carriers, the Americans invaded the Gilberts and for three days fought one of the most savage battles of the war at Tarawa (see After the Battle No. 15). The Japanese Combined Fleet remained at Truk because Admiral Koga was powerless to intervene. Exact loss figures for the Eleventh Naval Air Fleet are unknown but the Senshi Sosho official history says that out of 175 fighters available on November 1 only 50 of the 201st, 204th, and 253th Air Groups were left when the carrier groups left on November 14. Loss figures for the medium bombers are also unknown, but the 702nd Group (G4M1s) was disbanded December 1, leaving only the 751st at Rabaul.

A Japanese destroyer under attack by an American dive-bomber during the Armistice Day strike. (USNA) 25

By December 1943, Halsey’s South Pacific forces had advanced so far as to finally bring land-based fighters within range of Rabaul. On December 17, a combined force of Navy, Marine and New Zealand fighters — led by marine fighter ace Major THE AIR BATTLE OF RABAUL For a month after the Armistice Day battle, it was relatively quiet over Rabaul. Kenney’s Fifth Air Force turned its attention closer to home with MacArthur’s Cape Gloucester invasion set for December 26 and only the Australian Beauforts of No. 9 Group disturbed the peace at night. In the interim, the Japanese flew in 53 aircraft from the 24th Air Flotilla that included 16 A6Ms from the 281st Air Group. Most of the 24th Flotilla, however, had to be sent to the Marshall Islands to replace the 22nd Air Flotilla that had suffered heavy losses during the fighting in the Gilberts. Factoring in the normal monthly replacement aircraft, the best approximation from various sources including Allied photo reconnaissance, is that by December 17 — the day on which the battle was re-opened — the Japanese had about 200 aircraft at Rabaul, with half being A6Ms and the rest bombers, reconnaissance planes and transports. During the lull, COMAIRSOLS struck Bougainville targets daily and once, on November 21, the heavy bombers hit the Japanese airfield on Nauru Island in support of the Tarawa invasion. But the key to the final assault on Rabaul lay with the Seabee battalions and one Army Air Force aviation engineer battalion that were working around the clock to build the airfields necessary for COMAIRSOLS to advance. Halsey’s air force was at its deadliest when it could deliver its combination of punches — the heavy bombers wrecking the runways and destroying buildings and supply dumps, the medium bombers attacking the aircraft on the field as well as shipping, and the divebombers and torpedo planes taking out the anti-aircraft guns and shipping. In order to do this, COMAIRSOPAC’s airfield development plans called for building four new airfields and expanding two already in use. Army P-38s of the 347th and the 18th Fighter Groups along with the B-25s of the 42nd Bomb Group (M) would move to a 5,800foot field on Sterling in the Treasury Islands. The Marine and Navy single-engine bombers would move from Munda to three fields in the Bougainville perimeter, a 4,200-foot field at Torokina and two fields — one 4,000 feet and the other 6,000 feet at Piva — allowing Munda to be extended to 8,000 feet and serve as the heavy bomber base. The other expansion was at Ondonga where a second 4,000-foot strip was to be added. With the exception of the Bougainville sites, all others were coral strips that made for the best airfields in the South Pacific. When the 5th 26

Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington — took off from newly finished Torokina airstrip on Bougainville for the first fighter sweep over Rabaul. Here F4U Corsairs of VMF-214 — Boyington’s Black Sheep Squadron — line up for the mission. (USNA)

Bomb Group (H) moved to Munda it was enthusiastic about the coral roads, taxiways and runway and reported that it was ‘the best yet in the South Pacific.’ But even with the legendary speed of the Seabees, the construction took time, especially at Bougainville where the sites were not as satisfactory. But Halsey had agreed to support MacArthur in the Cape Gloucester operation, and so the offensive against Rabaul began almost immediately following the completion of the single strip at Torokina by the 17th Seabees in early December. The completion of Torokina was an important milestone because now, for the first time since the dual advance began, single-engine, land-based aircraft had come within range of Rabaul. On the morning of December 17, even while troops of the 3rd Marine and 37th Army Divisions were still engaged in heavy fighting with the Japanese a few miles inland, fighters began flying into Torokina from bases in New Georgia to join the Marine squadron already based there. Soon, 76 aircraft — Navy F6Fs, New Zealand P-40s and Marine F4Us — crammed the field. Their mission that morning was a fighter sweep of Rabaul. Major Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington of the Black Sheep Squadron, VMF-214, an ace several times over, was in command. The plan was simple enough — lure the defending Japanese fighters into the air and destroy them as a prelude to the attack of the heavy bombers. But little went right that day. Wing Commander Trevor Freeman led his New Zealand fighters into the air first and, without waiting for the rest as was the plan, took off for Rabaul. By the time that the Marine and Navy squadrons arrived, the New Zealanders were engaged with about two dozen Japanese fighters down low. The New Zealanders later claimed five enemy aircraft, losing two over Rabaul and one in a crack-up at Torokina on the way home. Two pilots were lost over the target, one parachuted and was captured after a collision with an enemy fighter (the Japanese pilot survived also) and Wing Commander Freeman was last seen at 1,500 feet headed in the direction of New Ireland, his P-40 trailing white smoke and under attack by several enemy fighters. Whereas the New Zealanders had flown in circles, passing over all of the Japanese airfields, Boyington made straight for Lakunai. But the Japanese, assured that no bombers were in the offing, kept their aircraft on the ground. ‘Come on up and fight’, Boyington yelled on his radio. ‘Come on down, sucker!’, a Nisei interpreter yelled back. Boyington

did, firing about 900 rounds in the direction of the parked enemy planes — but they stayed put. The only action occurred when 2nd Lieutenant Bob McClurg spotted a Nakajima Type 2 A6M2-N, a floatplane version of the Zero the Allies called a ‘Rufe’, calmly patrolling low over Simpson Harbor. The temptation was too great and breaking formation, McClurg dropped down behind the Nakajima, sent it flaming into the water, and rejoined, earning a wagging finger of rebuke from Boyington. Despite other American claims, that was the only other aircraft the Japanese lost for a total that day of two and one pilot. The Americans, on the other hand, lost two P-40s and their pilots over Rabaul and a P-40 and an F4U to accidents on the way home. A P-40 crash-landed at Torokina and one of Boyington’s pilots, 1st Lieutenant Donald. J. Moore, missed the west coast of Bougainville and was running low on fuel when he spotted the airstrip the 87th Seabees were building on Sterling Island in the Treasuries. Moore overshot the finished area and landed on the rough grade and hit a boulder. The Seabees took him to the medics (he was out of action for a week) and using a power shovel and cables lifted the wrecked Corsair onto a flatbed and carried it down to the dock area in case anyone wanted to retrieve it. Thus, ‘Pappy’ Boyington’s first fighter sweep over Rabaul accomplished little. Then the heavy bomber mission that was to have followed on the 18th was called off on account of bad weather. Bad weather had hampered Kenney’s efforts badly in late October, had been a factor in the November 11 carrier strike, and stayed bad almost continually throughout late December and early January 1944. On November 19 some heavy bombers got through to Rabaul but the mission was less than satisfactory with a number of aircraft turning back and those making it in hitting the town rather than the primary target, Lakunai airfield. But on December 23 the 5th Bomb Group got in a good strike on Lakunai, on the 24th the 307th Group hit Vunakanau squarely, and on Christmas Day the 5th hit both Lakunai and Rabaul town, nearly killing the 8th Area Army commander, General Imamura, who was the only man to survive a direct hit on the headquarters bomb shelter. In addition, fighter sweeps went in on 23rd, 24th, 27th and 28th. Halsey also hit from the sea. On December 24-25, carriers struck the Japanese airfields at Kavieng (see After the Battle No. 129) and a cruiser force bombarded the airfields at Buka and Bonis.

The new year, however, was to be a different story. In early January, COMAIRSOLS aircraft began their final advance of the war in the Solomons. On January 1, the SB-24 Snoopers (B-24s equipped with low-altitude blind-bombing equipment) were removed from the 5th Bomb Group and organised into the 868th Squadron and moved to Munda. In the first week of January, the Piva strips opened and COMAIRSOLS Headquarters and the single-engine bombers moved there and shortly thereafter the Army medium bombers and P-38s moved to Sterling. Finally, at the end of the month, the heavy bomb groups began moving from Guadalcanal to Munda. The new year also brought better weather. On January 21, the COMAIRSOLS intelligence summary began with ‘blessed again by bright blue weather’ and with the aircraft in place and the weather co-operating, what the bomber crews called the ‘Rabaul Blitz’ began in earnest. The period from January 21-25 will illustrate. On January 21, 38 B-24s hit Borpop, across St Georges Channel on New Ireland, the only remaining satellite airfield, but a heavy strike of SBDs, TBFs and fighters scheduled to hit Rabaul was turned back by weather. Early in the morning of the 22nd, 27 B-25s with 92 fighters bombed and strafed Lakunai airfield and that night six B-25s dropped incendiaries to mark the supply areas in north Rabaul town and 30 B-24s bombed on the fires, leaving the area in flames that could be seen 75 miles away. Next morning at 0915 47 SBDs, 18 TBFs and 84 fighters struck Lakunai again and later that afternoon, 48 fighters made a sweep. On the 24th, 18 TBFs with 88 fighters attacked shipping in Simpson Harbor, sinking just under 15,000 tons. Darkness brought no safety for every night one or two SB-24 Snoopers were on the prowl between Kavieng and Rabaul. When a target was picked up, the Liberator dropped out of the night like a giant nocturnal bird of prey to attack with the bombardier using radar to drop his string of bombs, sometimes at masthead level. Against these overwhelming odds, the Japanese pilots of the 201st, 204th and 253rd Air Groups fought with their traditional courage and determination. Rabaul was a ‘hornet’s nest’, Kenney had written in his instructions to the Fifth Air Force on November 10 regarding the scheduled mission next day. Despite already having claimed credit for the ‘neutralisation’ of Rabaul, he ordered the Fifth not to go in unless Halsey’s carriers attacked first. ‘We never knew who would be missing after a strike on Rabaul’, Dave Tribe, a New Zealand PV1 crewman, wrote long after the war. The Liberator that went down on the Armistice Day mission was lost to a Japanese pilot who pressed home his attack even though his own aircraft was on fire and exploded after he had made his pass. Colonel Unruh, commander of the 5th Bomb Group, went down on December 30 and on January 3, both ‘Pappy’ Boyington and his wingman were shot down. Mistakes over Rabaul were costly as the January 17 strike on shipping in Simpson Harbor will illustrate. Sixteen P-38s, drawn equally from the 339th and 44th Fighter Squadrons (the 339th was in the process of relieving the 44th and had a number of inexperienced pilots), joined Marine F4Us and Navy F6Fs to escort the 24 SBDs and 18 TBFs to the target. Two layers of clouds blanketed the harbour and for one reason or the other — the accounts conflict — the Army fighters never made contact with the Marine and Navy fighters and believed they were the sole escort. Consequently, when the bombers found a hole in the clouds and dived suddenly without warning to make their attack, the P-38s were caught by surprise. Then when the bombers called for pro-

The air campaign against Rabaul continued without pause in 1944, the Americans beginning in January what they called the ‘Rabaul Blitz’. On January 14, Navy SBDs and TBFs, supported by fighters, bombed Japanese shipping in Simpson Harbor, damaging the destroyer Matsukaze and the fleet tanker Naruto. The oiler ran aground on the beach near Vulcan crater. (USNHF) tection, the P-38 pilots who were unaware that the F6F Hellcats of VF-40 had gone down with the bombers, dove after them. The Japanese pounced, catching the P-38s at low altitude where they were outmatched in every way, and half of the Army fighters failed to return. For sending five ships totalling almost 19,000 tons to the bottom, the Americans paid with eight P-38s, one F4U, one F6F, one TBF and one SBD. But COMAIRSOLS’s continuous and relentless attacks took their toll. Lieutenant Commander Okumiya, who arrived back at Rabaul on January 20, was dismayed when he saw the men with whom he had served during the New Georgia campaign. ‘The fighting spirit which enabled us to ignore the worst at Buin was gone’, he wrote. ‘The men lacked confidence; they appeared dull and apathetic. No longer were they the familiar well-functioning team.’ ‘Where is Tojo?’, COMAIRSOLS Intelligence asked on January 25 when a fighter sweep met no opposition. As it turned out, Japanese reinforcements came in the same day from the 2nd Carrier Division (Lieutenant Commander Okumiya, the division’s

Air Staff Officer, had arrived in advance of the air groups). Rear-Admiral Takaji Jojima led in the 80 or so aircraft from the Junyo, Hiyo and Ryuho in what was to be the last Japanese attempt to stave off defeat, and the worn-out 26th Flotilla was ordered back to Truk (although some pilots stayed behind). The ‘Rabaul Blitz’ continued, however, and, if anything, intensified in mid-February in order to smother Japanese air activity at the time Halsey’s troops of the New Zealand 3rd Division with a regiment of Seabees landed at Green Island on February 15. Twenty days later, fighters from the new airstrip on Green Island hit Rabaul and in late March the bomber strip became operational. By the time the Green Island fighters appeared over Rabaul, however, there were no longer any Japanese defenders to contest the air. Between February 20-25, the operational aircraft at Rabaul, between 50 or 60, were ordered back to Truk in the wake of the heavy American carrier strikes of February 17-18. Left behind were about 30 pilots of whom many were sick and disabled, 15 A6Ms in various states of disrepair, one Type

Our comparison taken by Neville Howcroft in March 2006. Again the 1994 eruption of Vulcan (seen sloping on the right) significantly changed the area where the Naruto was beached, the shoreline having been moved much forward as a result of it. 27

100 reconnaissance plane, four Gekko night fighters out of commission and a few transport planes. In addition, eight Aichi Type 0 E13A (‘Jake’) floatplanes of the 958th Air Group stayed while the group’s Mitsubishi Type 0 F1M (‘Pete’) aircraft were ordered back to Truk. The air battle of Rabaul was over. ‘Where is the Japanese Air Force?’, COMAIRSOLS Intelligence asked on February 24 and, without waiting for an answer, struck hard the same day at the Imperial Army’s extensive supply dumps at Vunapope. On the 26th 137 bombers from both Bomber Command and Strike Command placed 164 tons of bombs on the same target. With the exception of the still very deadly anti-aircraft guns, the Gazelle Peninsula lay defenceless beneath the Allied formations. On March 2 wave after wave of attackers all but levelled Rabaul town and the COMAIRSOLS’s intelligence summary next day headed out its report, ‘Tojo Fiddles While Rabaul Burns’. At 1030, ‘just before the bonfire was lit at Rabaul’, 47 SBDs and 24 TBFs struck what shipping was left at Karavia Bay. Twenty minutes later 20 B-24s put 86 tons of explosives squarely on the main centre of northeast Rabaul, leaving fires raging in Chinatown and the warehouses on the waterfront. Half of a flight of 23 B-25s followed within minutes to hit the town while the rest diverted because of cloud cover to bomb Rapopo airfield and at 1100 14 P-38s carrying 1,000lb bombs dropped on the burning north-east section of town. To finish the daylight hours before the Snoopers began their prowl, a PV1 guided 12 SBDs to hit the radar station at Adler Bay. The escorting fighters on each mission used up their .50-calibre ammunition, strafing anything that looked promising on the ground. In early March, the first Marine squadron of B-25s (PBJs) arrived at Sterling and the attacks continued without let-up. By the third week of March, there were no targets for the heavy bombers and beginning with the 307th Bomb Group’s raid on March 29, their attacks were shifted to Truk. In April, the 5th and 307th Groups and the 868th Squadron left the South Pacific Area for good, flying over an impotent Rabaul to their new base in the Admiralties, which MacArthur had taken in late February. (The capture of the Admiralties with its fine harbour and airfield sites provided MacArthur with a substitute for Rabaul for his approach to the Philippines by way of western New Guinea and, along with Emirau in the St Matthias Group, completed the encirclement of Rabaul.)

Above: Also participating in the Rabaul Blitz was the special 868th Squadron equipped with SB-24 Snoopers. A special and top-secret development, Snoopers were B-24s equipped with low-altitude blind-bombing radar equipment, which enabled them to pick up and attack shipping at night. Other than at first being painted black and the radar antenna on the starboard nose — when the crews were photographed in front of their planes they would hang a jacket over the antenna — they looked no different from regular Liberators. First introduced in August 1943, they proved highly successful, plane for plane sinking or damaging more vessels at night than the heavy bombers that operated in daylight. The 868th Squadron, formed on January 1, 1944, was based at Munda airfield on New Georgia, where this picture was taken. Parked (left to right) are Madame Libby, Devil’s Delight and Ramp Tramp. (868th Snooper Assn) Below: Munda is still an airfield today. Here a Twin Otter from Solomon Islands Airline taxis out to the runway. (Day)

Left: A PBJ1-D (Marine B-25) piloted by Lieutenant Glenn Smith of VMB-413 going down at Tobera on May 5, 1944, after being hit by anti-aircraft fire. Note the damaged port engine. (R. Ray) Right: Wreckage of the same PBJ in its original location entwined in a tree on Vunatung Plantation. Since this picture 30

was taken, all the parts have been gathered up in one place. After the war, some of the bodies were recovered, but in the mid-1990s Rick Ray, manager of Vunatung, was ploughing when he discovered the aircraft’s first impact area and four more bodies. (Day)

Left: By early 1944, the relentless air attacks had forced the Japanese in Rabaul to go underground. In all, they constructed over 300 miles of tunnels. (USSBS) Right: This underground wireTHE AIR BLOCKADE At the end of March 1944, Vice-Admiral Kusaka moved his South-Eastern Area Fleet headquarters underground to one of the many tunnels the Japanese had dug into the North Daughter. The siege of Rabaul had begun. COMAIRSOLS never let up and when Halsey left the South Pacific in June for the carrier drive through the Central Pacific and COMAIRSOLS was dissolved and replaced with Command Air North Solomons (COMAIRNORSOLS) that fell under MacArthur, the attacks continued. On June 2, the command’s intelligence summary, now referring to the operations as the ‘Rabaul Blockade’, recorded that during the previous night four Marine PBJs had bombed the town and when daylight came two fighter patrols roamed the coast for any available targets to strafe, 24 B-25s hit targets from Lakunai to the town, three B-24s on a training mission bombed Tobera, a dozen SBDs struck Vunapope, 43 P-40s and

less station, part of the underground command facilities that included hospitals, storage sites and maintenance shops, was pictured by the Australians after the Japanese surrender. (AWM)

P-39s now operating as fighter-bombers hit Talili, and five PV1s attacked installations on the Duke of York Islands. Throughout the summer and autumn, as American air and ground units departed, New Zealand and Australian aircraft continued the blockade — right up to the Japanese surrender in August 1945. The most unusual attack came in October 1944 when a US Navy outfit known as STAG-1 tried out its TDR-1 assault drone aircraft on Rabaul targets. The TDRs were remotely controlled from a mother plane (a converted TBF), and before their attack on Rabaul rehearsed against targets in southern Bougainville. Two hits were made on gun positions during the tests, but in the attack on Rabaul, heavy radio interference caused none to hit their target. ‘The results were disappointing’, the Navy’s analysis concluded and the program was terminated. The transport Kokai Maru, arriving on February 19, 1944, and departing on the 25th,

Left: The Rabaul area is still literally honeycombed with tunnels of all sizes, some very elaborate, some merely caves. Ronnie Day explored one that is located on the flanks of North Daughter,

and carrying barges, ammunition and food, was the last ship to come to Rabaul, Admiral Kusaka recalled for his USSBS interrogators after the war. Until early April, a few submarines came in and safely unloaded munitions and medical supplies. After that, the Rabaul garrison was left on its own. During the first nine months of 1944, the Japanese built a complex of tunnels that Kusaka in his memoirs Rabauru Sensen Ijo Nashi: Warera Kaku Iki Kaku Tatakaeri (War in Rabaul: How We Fought and Survived) says that by November reached 70 kilometres for the Navy and 80 kilometres for the Army. By the end of the war he estimated that these had doubled. Gradually the Japanese in the Rabaul area moved underground. ‘Some tunnels got a good breeze, but others did not; some had bad sanitation’, Kusaka wrote. His own, unfortunately, had no breeze and was so humid that fungus was a problem. The high humidity had other negative effects, especially on the spoilage of

in the sector occupied by the Imperial Navy. The eruptions of 1994 have almost buried its entrance, leaving barely enough space to crawl through. Right: Inside, the tunnels are bare. 31

The Japanese also constructed special tunnels for barges at several places along the Rabaul shoreline. The barges only operated at night, being pulled into the safe shelters before canned foodstuffs and the destruction of the film negatives the Japanese had shot during the campaign (this last to be lamented by historians). Ultimately, as the months passed, the supplies of food dwindled and medical supplies were exhausted. The Japanese turned to farming on a large scale that went far in remedying the first problem but the experimenting with local plants for herbal medicines was less fruitful. And the Japanese, again as typical as their courage, never gave up. Using parts cannibalised from wrecked aircraft, mechanics had a few A6Ms flying by the end of March 1944. The authority on this period, Henry Sakaida, appropriately calls it Rabaul’s ‘guerrilla air force.’ Aircraft — however few in number — were kept flying until the surrender and in the spring of 1945 two re-manufactured torpedo bombers attacked two floating dry docks in Seeadler Harbor in the Admiralties that inflicted minor damage. The Japanese had mistaken them for American carriers.

dawn and back out after dark. The tunnels seen here were in Blanche Bay, the middle part of Rabaul harbour. This is how the Australians found them in 1945. (AWM)

One of the best-preserved barge tunnels can be seen in Karavia Bay further south. It is similar to the Blanche Bay tunnels except that here the barges were winched into the tunnel along railway lines, the tunnel entrance being about 100 metres from the water’s edge. Today the site is run as a tourist attraction. (Parker)

Left and right: Three original but by now very rusty barges remain lined up inside the tunnel. (Bradley/Parker) 32

Despite the destruction caused by the eruptions, Rabaul still holds many reminders of the war. This wreckage of a Japanese Betty bomber can be found at Vunatung Coconut Plantation on the site of Tobera airfield. It is slowly crumbling, being eaten by the acid emitted by the volcanoes. (Day) CONCLUSION The Battle of the Philippine Sea of June 19-20, 1944, is held to mark the date that the Japanese Naval Air Force died. But this was not the force — among the world’s best — that had begun the war. Most of the carriers Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa commanded in that battle were new as were some of the types of aircraft crowding the decks. But the pilots that were to fly them — to their deaths as it turned out — had been only hastily trained and lacked experience in flying, let alone in combat and thus were no match for the F6Fs from the most powerful fleet the world had seen to that date. The American fighters shot them from the skies in such numbers that forever after it was called the ‘Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.’ But the Japanese Naval Air Force had been dealt its mortal blow in the South Pacific. The omens of disaster appeared before the Japanese had been a month at Rabaul. The first — and one of the gravest weaknesses — was the inability to construct airfields. As the tide turned against them in the South Pacific, the Japanese came to realise what role engineering expertise and the bulldozer had played in their defeat. The Army and Navy’s explanation to the Japan-

The waters around Rabaul hide fascinating relics too. One of the best-known wrecks is that of a Zero fighter surviving almost intact at 33 metres’ depth in the clear blue water off Kokopo. A popular diving site, this picture of the coral-covered aircraft was taken by Blair Dixon in June 2005.

ese people via the Domei News Service and routinely intercepted by Allied intelligence invariably began with something on the order of ‘We are yielding to the advance of enemy’s bases’. Ironically one of these admissions was translated December 17, 1943, the day that ‘Pappy’ Boyington’s fighters lined up at Torokina for that first fighter sweep over Rabaul. The second evil omen was the persistent under-estimation of the Americans and the aggressiveness of the US Navy. Fuchida from his command aircraft over Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, had watched with concerned admiration the curtain of anti-aircraft fire his second wave encountered and was surprised at how fast the surprised Americans reacted. Nonetheless, Admiral Goto in mid-February 1942 as we have seen, when the first American carrier threatened Rabaul, rashly sent in his unescorted Type 1 bombers to be virtually annihilated and from this no lessons were learned either about the ability of the Americans or the weaknesses of Japanese aircraft. Back home in the States among media types and others far removed from the reality, the ‘Zero’ might acquire a mythic invincibility, but in actuality the Allied pilots quickly took its measure and

The Australian Memorial on the foreshore of Simpson Harbour honours all those who lost their lives in the defence of New Britain and during the Japanese occupation. Due to the memorial being buried by the 1994 eruptions it was relocated to a raised platform in 2002. (Saunders)

learned that its weaknesses were equal to — or greater — than its strengths. Finally, the Japanese fed the cream of their air fleet into the battle piecemeal. Had they advanced down the islands quickly, building bases, and bringing in adequate aircraft to ensure air superiority, then the story of Rabaul, while no doubt having the same ending, would have been very different in the telling. I would like to thank the Research Development Committee of East Tennessee State University, whose major grant made possible my first trip to Rabaul and Bougainville in 2000; the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery with which I was affiliated in the summer of 2000 — especially Ilaiah Bigilale, Director, and Senea Greh, Department of Modern History (and the latter’s staff) — for their help and friendship. Third, I could not have written this without Hitomi Kinuhata who translated almost all of the Japanese material and Hiromi Yamazaki who translated the portion of Shoichi Morii’s memoirs. Finally, on a personal note, thanks to Brian and Bev Martin of the Rapopo Resort for looking after me when I was in Rabaul.

The Japanese War Memorial, erected in 1980 higher up the hill above the town. It too was partly buried by the 1994 eruption but, when dug out, turned out to have suffered little damage. The road up to it was totally destroyed but has been rebuilt with Japanese Government help. (Parker) 33

In December 1943, a Japanese Aichi D3A ‘Val’ bomber was lost during air battles over Cape Markus in New Britain, the aircraft crash-landing into the water just off the coast, killing both of

the crew. Lost for nearly 60 years, but with rumours of its existence circulating since the 1980s, the wreck was not discovered until September 2001. (A. Cowan)

AICHI D3A ‘VAL’ RECOVERY Late in the summer of 1936, the Imperial Japanese Navy issued a specification calling for an advanced design to succeed their carrier-based biplane, the Navy Type 96 (Aichi D1A2). This bomber had gained notoriety in 1937 when it sank the American gun boat Panay, but during the Second World War the D1A2 served mainly in second-line units, receiving the Allied code-name ‘Susie’. The new specification called for a lowwing, carrier-based dive-bomber. The singleengine D3A monoplane with elliptical wings, a fixed undercarriage and a two-man crew was first blooded in the surprise attacks by the Japanese Navy on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The aircraft was given the code-name ‘Val’ by the Americans soon after the Hawaii attack and thus it became the first Japanese aircraft to drop bombs on American soil. This plane was also the last type of Japanese carrier-borne aircraft to use a fixed undercarriage as this was considered by many to be an almost obsolete design. A total of 1,495 D3As were built: 1,294 by Aichi Kokuki of Nagoya and 201 by Showa Hikoki of Tokyo. Of the Aichi-built ones, 478 were Type 99 D3A1 (Model 11) and 816 were D3A2 (Model 22). Right: Japan’s main carrier-based bomber, the Val saw service throughout the Pacific war, being operated by the carriers Akagi, Chitose, Chiyoda, Hirya, Kaga, Ryujo, Soryu, Zuiho, and Zuikaku and by the 12th, 14th, 31st, 33rd, 40th, 541st and 582nd Air Groups. Here a D3A1 takes off from a carrier on December 7, 1941, en route for Pearl Harbor. 34

By Gail Parker and Rod Pearce During the first ten months of the war the Val enjoyed considerable success being responsible for sinking more Allied ships than any other type of Japanese aircraft. The Japanese Navy’s 2nd Air Group (Kokutai)

consisting of both fighter and bomber units — namely Vals — was established at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan on May 31, 1942 and it arrived in Rabaul on August 6 that year. The following day this group went

into action for the first time against the American landing at Guadalcanal. On November 1, 1942, as a result of the reorganisation of the air groups due to catastrophic losses, the 2nd Air Group was split into the 552nd and 582nd Air Groups. The 582nd Group consisted of Vals and began to participate in battles over New Guinea, commencing with an attack against the enemy transports on November 16, 1942. On December 15, 1943, the Allies began landing operations at Cape Merkus (Arawee) on the south-western shore of New Britain, the US 112th Cavalry Regiment providing the assault force. The Rabaul-based Japanese air groups launched nine attacks before the month was out involving a total of 622 bombers and fighters. Some of the fighters were adapted to carry external ordnance along with the Vals. Three days later, Rabaul was reinforced by the carrier Zuikaku, its 18 Zero A6Ms being led by Kenji Nakagawa. They were placed under the command of the 253rd Air Group and commenced air attacks the next day. Also at that time ‘Kate’ B5Ns and ‘Betty’ G4Ms carried out night attacks against the beachhead. Between December 17 and 27, seven missions were flown from Rabaul against Allied landings by the Japanese 582nd and 552nd Air Groups. Over 122 sorties were flown by the Vals and over 40 crew members were lost along with their aircraft. WRECK DISCOVERY In 1984, Rod Pearce (a keen WWII enthusiast), while looking for a downed aircraft in the Arawee area, was told by a local of an aircraft in the water near an exposed wreck of an American B-25 Mitchell bomber. Over the next few years, whenever Rod was in that area, he searched for this unknown aircraft but failed to locate it. Many years later Rod passed this information on to a friend, Mark Reichman, a New Tribes Mission worker living and working in Kandrian, some 25 miles south-east of Arawee. Mark is also an avid WWII buff as well as a keen scuba diver In 2001, again on advice from a local, Mark was told of a crashed aircraft in the water near Arawee but this time the villager offered to show Mark the location. However, after a number of hours spent fruitlessly searching with no contact, the local man gave up. Later Mark went back to the area with his two sons to carry out a further search. Towing the boys wearing goggles and flippers up and down behind his boat, in less than an hour the boys started yelling: ‘We found it’. Anchoring the boat and marking the location, Mark then led his sons for a very exciting first dive to look at the wreck. (Mark has commented since that day that having returned to the site a number of times, the water has never been as clear as it was on that first day.) Initially they had no idea what kind of aircraft they had discovered so when they returned home that night they looked in every book they had. Matching up the distinguishing features of the aircraft, they soon decided that it must be a Val.

I seldom ever flew the Zero on bombing missions. One of the bombing attacks was against Cape Merkus. Kates and Vals took off respectively from Vunakauna airfield and the first airfield [Lakunai] with about 40 Zeros in escort and about 30 Zeros each carrying two 60kg bombs. Commander Shibata stood in front of the command post and ordered in a strong tone: ‘We shall now launch attacks against the enemy vessels at Cape Merkus. The Zeros equipped with bombs should release them at below 1,000 meters in altitude. The bombcarrying Zeros shall be called a Special Attack Force’. [Not the same as the Kamikaze special attack in later years.] Equipping my Zero with bombs and, moreover, releasing them at a low altitude was a totally new experience for me. The Kates and the Vals as well as the Zeros tasked for direct escort flew far ahead at about 3,000 meters. When the destination was near, the bomb-equipped Zeros released their drop tanks. It appeared that there was no enemy fighter in the sky. Vals were already commencing attacks. I could see columns of water spouting up or black smoke rising high from the ships hit. Our commander banked to signal attacks. Enemy ships were so numerous that it was difficult to pick up a target to plunge at following the aircraft ahead of me. While descending, enemy shells exploded right and left shaking the plane violently. Sweat must have been running from my hand that gripped the control stick. Unable to choose a target despite rapid descent, I followed the aircraft immediately ahead of me and let go of the bombs to attack the vessel that entered my gun sight. I pulled the bomb-releasing cord with all my power, took an evasive action by flying down to the right. I then looked up and joined the friendly planes. I had no idea if my bombs had hit anything. PETTY OFFICER SEKIZEN SHIBAYAMA

The wreck was discovered on September 8, 2001 by local New Tribes Mission worker Mark Reichman and his two sons Jared (left), then aged 10, and Micah (right), 15. Acting on advice from a local man, they scoured the water near Arawee and finally found the wreck at a depth of seven metres.

Right: The aircraft rests upside down on the seabed, which is an indication as to how it came to its end. Apparently, faced with battle damage or engine trouble, the pilot had attempted to ditch his aircraft but its fixed undercarriage had caused the plane to flip over on contact with the water, the impact tearing the engine from its mount and breaking the fuselage. Obviously, the pilot had already dropped his bombs on a target or jettisoned his load before attempting a crash-landing as there are no bombs near the wreck. This is the tail end, pictured by Anthony Cowan in May 2005. 35

RABAUL

N

CAPE MERKUS

The wreck lies just off Cape Merkus (Arawee) on the southwestern shore of New Britain. The aircraft had taken off from Lakunai airstrip at Rabaul to attack the Allied seaborne land-

ings at Cape Merkus. These had begun on December 15 and were a diversionary for MacArthur’s main landings at Cape Gloucester further west, launched on the 26th.

In December 2002 Rod Pearce (left), owner and operator of Niugini Diving, who had first tipped off Mark Reichman about

the wreck at Cape Merkus, returned to the site and himself explored the Val from his motor vessel Barbarian II (right).

Mark informed Rod of his find so while on a charter to the Arawee area in December 2002, Rod decided to have a look at the aircraft himself. It lay in seven metres of water on a silty bottom, two miles from the outer Arawee Islands. The underwater visibility was excellent for that particular area, and on examining the aircraft closely it was clear that it was an Aichi D3A1 Navy Type 99. The pilot it seems had tried to make a water landing after suffering what appeared to be battle damage and, with the fixed undercarriage, the plane had somersaulted upon contact with the water. The Val now rested upside down on its left side with one landing gear intact and the other sheared off, although the hydraulic ram remained in place. The aircraft also had a broken fuselage and severe damage to the front; the engine torn from its mounts and lying under the wing on the right side. Both the 7.7mm machine guns in the cockpit were badly bent as a result of the impact. Both soft and hard coral had now grown around the plane. Bearing in mind the frontal damage, it indicated that both crew members would not 36

have survived unless they had bailed out, and on closer examination of the cockpit, Rod spotted human skeletal remains. The maker’s plate on the tail hook of the plane was photographed as were the remains, this information being passed to the Japanese embassy in Port Moresby, along with maps of the area. As Rod was again in the Arawee area during May 2005, he once again dived on the Val to do a feasibility study for the embassy as they had indicated that a recovery was possible at a later date. Rod was curious to see if the remains of the second airman — the observer — were still in or around the plane. On slowly fanning the silt away with one hand he eventually came across the remains of the second crew member just a couple of inches beneath the silt. Photographs were taken and forwarded to the Japanese as proof that the second crew member remained in the wreck as well. The skeletal remains of both missing airmen are in remarkable condition considering the 60-odd years they have been in the water. This preservation has been assisted by the soft silty bottom on which the aircraft lays.

The aircraft’s wings appear largely intact. (A. Cowan)

The Japanese Navy assigned each aircraft a Type number (indicating the year in which production was begun), a short letter/figure description code (indicating the aircraft’s function, number in its class, manufacturing firm, and mark respectively) and a model number (consisting of two digits, the first relating to the airframe, the second to the engine). Thus the ‘Val’ bomber, as the Americans dubbed it, was in official Navy nomenclature the Type 99 D3A2 Model 11 — with Type 99 standing for 1939 (2599 in the Japanese calendar), D for Carrier Bomber, 3 for third carrier bomber, A for Aichi, 2 for Mark 2, while the Model 11 (one-one) indicated it had the first type of airframe and first type of engine.

TECHNICAL DATA OF THE AICHI TYPE 99 D3A1 MODEL 11 (‘VAL’) Description: Single-engine, two-seat, carrier-borne and land-based dive-bomber of metal construction with fabric control surfaces and fixed undercarriage.

Armament: Two forward-firing 7.7mm machine guns and one rear-firing 7.7 flexible mount; bomb load, 1 × 250kg fuselage and 2 × 30kg under the wings.

Power plant: Single engine, 14-cylinder, air-cooled radial made by Mitsubishi Kinsei, rated at 1,070 hp for take-off power and driving a metal three-blade propeller.

Dimensions: Span: 14.365 metres Weight empty: 2,408kg Weight loaded: 3,650kg Cruising speed: 160 knots (298 km/h) Maximum speed: 209 knots (389 km/h) Ceiling: 9,300 metres Range: 795 nautical miles

Crew: Two in tandem enclosed cockpit.

One of the wheels of the fixed undercarriage. (A. Cowan) Having previously found other aircraft underwater with missing still aboard, including an Australian Beaufort A9-217 with four crew members that had ditched on return from a mission to Rabaul which resulted in a complete recovery by the RAAF, Rod’s team feel that in many circumstances remains on underwater aircraft are better preserved, provided they are covered by silt or sand, than those found in crashes on land. This is probably also assisted by the isolation and limited human interference at these remote underwater resting places. Rod and his team at Niugini Diving remain committed to seeking closure for the lost airmen of both Allied and Axis forces in and around Papua New Guinea. They hope that this latest wreck discovery will result in both crew members being identified and any remaining next of kin notified.

The tail wheel sticking out from the upturned frame. (A. Cowan)

A small plate found on the wreck’s recovered tail hook was at first thought to give the aircraft’s serial number, which would have been vital for identifying the aircraft and hence the crew, but later research showed that it was just a manufacturer’s plate without any relevance to the aircraft’s identity. (T. Doyle) Left: Human skeletal remains of both the pilot and the observer were spotted in the wreck. Rod Pearce and his associates immediately informed the Japanese Embassy in Port Moresby of the discovery, providing them with the exact location of the wreck and photographic evidence of the skeletal remains, this picture of a human bone sticking out from under the fuselage being taken by Blair Nixon during a dive in May 2005. They also, at the request of the Japanese Embassy, supplied information on access, transport and accommodation to the area. The wreck is in a very isolated location and difficult to get to as it takes two days by boat or a very long trek through the jungle and then a boat trip to reach it. At the time of writing, the Japanese are still considering mounting an operation to retrieve the remains of the airmen for repatriation to Japan for a proper burial. However it is debatable whether attempts will be made to identify the two flyers, be it through DNA, dental records, aircraft loss records or a combination of these three data. We will monitor further developments. 37

Right: They Were Not Divided, produced in 1949, is one of those war films that is probably more interesting because of its feel of authenticity than because of its plot. The title refers to Americans and Britons standing shoulder to shoulder in the fight for democracy during the war, but this is only a thin ideological veil over the movie’s main theme, which is the experiences of a British armoured squadron at war. Portraying the wartime service of a group of men in the Welsh Guards, the movie can actually be seen as a filmed version of a unit history, namely that of the Guards Armoured Division, and as such it was also advertised in its publicity posters. Making use of actors (most of whom had served during the war) interspersed with real soldiers; being filmed at historic locations and utilising authentic uniforms and equipment, the movie attained an air of veracity that would be lacking from many war films produced in later decades. As such it ranks on a par with Theirs is the Glory, the much better remembered epic on the battle of Arnhem, produced four years earlier. Released in April 1950, in the face of strong opposition from American war pictures, such as Battleground and Twelve O’Clock High, amongst others, They Were Not Divided did not fare too well with critics at the time though, as far as the paying public were concerned, it was deemed worthy of a place in that year’s top 30 films list. Today it is barely remembered, only resurfacing occasionally for an afternoon showing on television. Its director and writer, Terence Young, however, went on to make some pictures that have sustained a higher profile, in the form of three of the Bond films: Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball. Young’s own war had included working as a screen writer, as well as serving as a captain with the Guards Armoured Division, apparently being wounded twice — once during XXX Corps’ drive on Nijmegen. He had been a tank commander with the Irish Guards, and was to be found on manoeuvres with the Guards Armoured Division in Yorkshire in 1942. He later remarked that in the first fortnight he had learned more about tank warfare than he had absorbed about film production in the previous five years.

THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED By Trevor Popple Fresh from university, he had scored some success as co-writer with On the Night of the Fire in 1938 — a Ralph Richardson vehicle, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst — continuing after the outbreak of war with Hurst’s Dangerous Moonlight (1941). Young’s next picture was Clive Brook’s On Approval (1944) — this being written whilst serving with the Guards. Thus, with such a wealth of experience, he was well placed to write the screenplay for Hurst’s film Theirs is the Glory, an account of the battle for Arnhem. Released in 1946, it was shot mainly in the ruins of Oosterbeek the previous year, using veterans of the original action (see After the Battle No. 58). Young later went on to write and direct The Red Beret, starring American Alan Ladd as a Canadian paratrooper, which was released in 1953. Left: Fresh recruit Philip Hamilton (Edward Underdown) entering the Guards’ Depot at Caterham. 38

Recruits Hamilton, David Morgan (Ralph Clanton) and ‘Smoke’ O’Connor (Michael Brennan) undergoing drill on the depot’s parade ground. The movie actors of 1949 marched in company of real guardsmen, the drill orders being given by a genuine company sergeant-major, CSM King of the Welsh Guards (left), and by Sergeant Dean (Rufus Cruikshank) (right). The Guards Depot was built on land procured in 1875, and remained in use But between these two pictures he wrote and directed They Were Not Divided under producer Herbert Smith for the Rank Organisation. Broadly the story follows two friends, Philip Hamilton (Edward Underdown) and David Morgan, an American (Ralph Clanton), who join the Welsh Guards just after Dunkirk. Commissioned as 2nd lieutenants they spend their time training in England and preparing themselves and the vehicles for the North African campaign, then Italy, only in the event to remain at home until they are sent to Normandy with the Guards Armoured Division in June 1944. Whereupon the film follows their fortunes through France, Belgium and the liberation of Brussels, then to Holland and Nijmegen, and finally to the Battle of the Bulge, where the two lead characters are killed in action. The love interest is provided by a wife (Helen Cherry) for Hamilton, and an English girlfriend (Stella Andrew) for Morgan.

until closure in 1995 whereupon the main barrack blocks, plus some other buildings, were converted into private living accommodation. Other structures (including the guardhouse on Coulsdon Road where Hamilton had reported as a cadet) were demolished with new houses being built on the site. Today the parade ground, although still flanked by trees, is a grass cricket pitch with a traditional wooden pavilion.

The cast was to comprise of unknown, or little known, professional actors, all ex-service men, blended with genuine soldiers with speaking roles. Only two of the professionals would become well known in later years — these being Desmond Llewelyn, the testy, long-suffering ‘Q’ in the Bond films, and Christopher Lee, once the doyen of the Hammer Horror films, sometime Bond villain, and more recently Saruman in the Lord of the Rings series. Llewelyn plays Welsh hull gunner ‘77 Jones’, whilst Lee is Captain Chris Lewis, one of the tank commanders. As for the two male leads, Edward Underdown continued to work regularly, tending to be cast as doctors or military figures, thereby typically appearing for Terence Young in Thunderball, as an Air Commodore. Whilst Ralph Clanton returned to America where he worked steadily in theatre and television, in the main, plus being cast in some small film parts.

Left: A memorable performance in the early training scenes was given by the real Regimental Sergeant-Major Ronald Brittain of the Coldstream Guards. A larger-than-life character, affectionately known as ‘the man with the loudest voice in the British Army’, ‘Tubby’ Brittain served in the Army for 38 years, from 1917 to 1955, 25 of them as warrant officer. During that time he drilled some 40,000 cadets, becoming a legend to thousands of young soldiers. As senior RSM in the Army he was in charge of ceremonial drills at many Royal occasions, including the Jubilee Parades for King George V and Queen Mary, the

The third character — Corporal ‘Smoke’ O’Connor — was played by Michael Brennan, an actor whose career spanned five decades, starting on television in 1939. Following the war he continued, mainly playing minor authority figures, heavies or petty crooks, both on television and in the cinema. One of the amateur performers did rather well: this was Michael Trubshawe playing Major ‘Bushey’ Noble, so named because of a beautifully cultivated and impeccably maintained moustache. In uniform he could be regarded as the personification of cartoonist Jon’s wartime strip The Two Types — either of them. Trubshawe had served in the Highland Light Infantry in Malta with the film actor David Niven in the 1930s, and the pair had become great friends, to the extent that he had been Niven’s best man — twice. Post war he had been the landlord of a series of pubs in Kent and Sussex, in one of which Young had met him, and become

coronation of King George VI and also the latter’s funeral. They Were Not Divided was his first film appearance, but he would play the part he knew so well in other movies too. In this scene, having spotted Guardsman Hamilton free-wheeling on his bicycle, he charges him with ‘being idle whilst cycling’. Looking on is Company Sergeant-Major King. Right: An already-shorn Hamilton (left) experiences the wonderful velvet tones of RSM Brittain during a barracks room inspection: ‘Am I hurting you? I should be. Because I’m standing on your back hair. GET IT CUT!’ 39

It is early 1942 and O’Connor, their old friend from the days at Caterham, having subsequently become an instructor at Lulworth and attained the rank of corporal, joins Lieutenants Hamilton and Morgan as replacement gunner for Morgan’s crew in No. 1 Troop at their base in the UK. The two Cromwells — Hamilton’s vehicle is just out of shot with one track removed, whilst Morgan’s stands in the background — are backed up by a Centurion. Britain’s first post-war tank, the Centurion has its skirts removed, perhaps to create a degree of similarity with the Cromwells. However, at this point of time in the film, the Cromwells are as anachronistic as the Centurion, for they were not introduced until November 1942 and in actual fact during 1942-43 the armoured battalions of the Guards Armoured Division were equipped with Crusaders. impressed enough to engage him for a prominent part in the film. And out of this chance meeting there spawned a career in pictures, and some television (The Avengers), that was to last 20 years, in which he too always seemed to play very ‘British’ colonels, ambassadors, other establishment figures, or even an un-credited member of the Observer Corps in Battle of Britain (see After the Battle No. 1) — and always with the moustache to the fore. Desmond Llewelyn was good-naturedly critical of the ‘fabulously moustached’ Trubshawe’s success. He had been a struggling actor before the war, and having returned home from spending five years as a prisoner, Right: Seated on his Daimler Dingo scout car, Major ‘Bushey’ Noble (Michael Trubshawe) observes his squadron, now converted to Shermans, entering Camp A260 in the marshalling areas of southern England prior to embarkation for the invasion. Although the Guards unit in the movie is identified as the ‘4th Welsh Guards’ — an imaginary unit as this regiment never had a 4th Battalion — by having the Welsh Guards going to war equipped with Shermans, the movie introduced another small anomaly. Of the four armoured regiments in the Guards Armoured Division in 194445 (2nd Grenadier Guards, 1st Coldstream Guards, 2nd Irish Guards and 2nd Welsh Guards), the Welsh Guards were the only unit not equipped with Shermans — being the division’s armoured recce unit, they had Cromwells. The film production probably used Shermans because that was a type of tank available in sufficient numbers from the BAOR, but one wonders whether the anomaly was written into the script on purpose or, if not, whether the film team ever considered changing the storyline from Welsh Guards to one of the other Guards regiments. Another anomaly mixing up the various regiments within the Guards Armoured is the ‘53’ unit serial number seen on the Welsh Guards vehicles in the movie, this number in actual fact having been that of the 2nd Irish Guards during the 1944-45 campaign. 40

Morgan and his crew painting their Cromwell in sand camouflage to prepare for embarkation to North Africa, which in the course of events does not materialise. Seen (L–R) are ’77 Dai Jones (Desmond Llewelyn), ’45 Ivor Jones (John Wynn) and Morgan. Behind them on the hull is the anonymous soldier who drove their vehicles for the production and, with the absent Michael Brennan as gunner, completed the five-man crew. Cromwells appeared in movies until the mid-fifties — usually as enemy tanks, A Hill in Korea (1956) being an example — and then disappeared for nearly 50 years, leaving the cinema wars to be fought by Shermans, T34s and various types of post-war tanks, and then three turned up magnificently in HBO’s landmark television series Band of Brothers in 2001, courtesy of art director Alan Tomkins.

he was now trying to regenerate his career. With the advent of a new peace, and at a time when theatre was hardly booming, it was not the best of times. His wife Pamela was two months pregnant, when he secured a screen test with Terence Young in January 1949. He was hoping that They Were Not Divided — his biggest role so far — would prove to be his big break, and thus was irritated by the discovery that some of the amateur players — Trubshawe in particular — were assigned more substantial roles. Llewelyn admitted that he was galled because Trubshawe got a lot of work as a consequence of the film, whereas he did not. What he did get, however, on a trip home from

Hamburg during a break in filming, was his first son, Ivor, born on July 14. In a way They Were Not Divided was to be his break: just over a decade later Young cast him as ‘Q’ in From Russia With Love — Peter Burton, the original actor who had played Major Boothroyd (later ‘Q’) in Dr No, not being available. Llewelyn was to reprise the role a further 16 times, before his death in 1999. Christopher Lee’s view of Young’s casting of amateurs was more pragmatic: on the one hand their performances merely underlined the need for casting professionals, whilst on the other, they withstood the buffets of film making without complaint.

Heading for the Normandy beaches, courtesy of back projection and archive inserts, Major Noble observes: ‘Different from last time. Dunkirk in reverse’. With him is an anonymous Guards officer (front right), being played by Peter Burton, who would later be cast as Major Boothroyd, the original ‘Q’ in Dr. No — the role subsequently taken over by Desmond Llewelyn. Back row left is Christopher Lee as Captain Chris Lewis.

Real or reconstruction? The Welsh Guards arrive at their new base in Normandy with the dust from Hamilton’s Sherman nearly obliterating ‘Bushey’ Noble, who has just nimbly dismounted from his still-moving scout car to guide the tanks in. In an acknowledgement to the film’s authenticity, at the premiere in April 1950 a high-ranking army officer had asked director Terence Young where he had shot the film ‘during the war’!

He had already made one film with Young three years previously, and now the director was casting him in his latest picture, thereby once again releasing him from the ‘purdah’, in Lee’s view, that was the Rank Charm School, to whom he was then contracted. He freely admits he was in Young’s debt, but nevertheless was not over-impressed with the film, referring to the story as ‘mawkish’. Another of the amateurs was Regimental Sergeant-Major Ronald Brittain MBE of the Coldstream Guards, seen in company with Company Sergeant-Major King of the Welsh Guards, during Hamilton’s bicycle infraction scene at the Caterham depot. In typical army fashion, because he is free-wheeling, Brittain charges Hamilton with being idle whilst bicycling. Brittain became something of a media figure as well: he appeared in cameos on British TV in the fifties and sixties, and even featured in some films — Carrington VC and 55 Days at Peking, being examples — and always playing to type. As to locations: interiors were photographed at Denham Studios in Buckinghamshire, and early basic training scenes were shot at the Guards Training Depot at Caterham in Surrey — both interior and exterior. Some sequences were shot in Belgium and France, but Soltau, close to Lüneburg Heath in northern Germany, was the principal Above right: Going into its first attack, the unit suffers its first casualties — the sequence no doubt representing the opening day of Operation ‘Goodwood’ east of Caen on July 18. As the wounded are recovered, whilst under fire from a German 88, Noble (with binoculars) assesses the situation: ‘That’s him in the corner of the woods . . . So if No. 1 go around to the right, make a demonstration, 3 and 4 can sneak through on the left, whilst the rest of us give covering fire turret-down behind the hedges on the left’. The burning cast-hull Sherman seen here is one of at least two hulks utilised in the film to portray knocked-out Allied tanks. Another is a welded-hull M4A4, minus one or two periscopes, evident after the Welsh Guards’ first major action, and again later in the Arnhem scenes. The wreck of an Americanmade Staghound armoured car also ‘suffers for its art’ in a couple of shots. Right: Another of the amateur actors selected by Young was Iain Murray (right) who plays the Welsh Guards’ commanding officer. An Arnhem veteran, he had been demobbed from the Grenadier Guards as a lieutenant-colonel, having previously commanded No. 1 Wing of the Glider Pilot Regiment. With Morgan on the left, Murray is reprimanding an out-of-shot ’45 Jones from his Jeep for having his three top buttons undone. Thoroughly chastened, Jones expresses a desire to get on with the battle, on the basis that it might be a safer place to be. (John Wynn, who plays Jones, stopped acting in the 1960s, working instead in lighting, sound and as a camera operator.) 41

location for the tank scenes. The Wooden Horse — released in 1950 as well — was also photographed there in the autumn of 1949 (see After the Battle No. 87) ), and thus must have followed They Were Not Divided. Films provided a boost for the local economy, with German technicians building sets, or providing special effects for the productions. Christopher Lee, however, holds a suspicious view of German support staff of that period: one of the ‘buffets’ of making the film included the fitting of explosive charges covered with foliage and petroleum jelly to the tanks. These were fired electrically by the joining of a pair of wires by one of those aboard, with the result invariably being a sheet of flame and a concussion for the crew, be they actor or soldier. As Lee wrote: ‘It was uncertain how much real animus lingered on four years after the war’. Underlying German hostility — real or imagined — aside, there were dangers for crew and cast alike: some of the tank scenes were shot at Gmund-Eifel, an area still strewn with mines. ‘Which made filming an interesting exercise’, Lee added ironically. Genuinely interesting, of course, is the provision of tanks for the film: for scenes set in the UK, two Cromwells were used (with a Centurion tucked in the background), and referred to by name. These were employed statically, to illustrate the unit’s frustrations as the crews paint them in a sand colour in anticipation of going to North Africa, only to have them revert to khaki drab when the order is rescinded in March 1943. The Cromwell did not go into service until November that year, so its appearance in the period between Dunkirk and Alamein was pre-emptive. But archive footage of armour on exercises, intended to be set during the course of 1941, accurately includes the hapless Covenanter, and the earlier Cruiser, A13. The British Army of the Rhine provided nine Shermans, and associated vehicles, for the production, and, according to one source, it would appear that the variants typical of the European campaign, which had ended only four years previously, were something of a scarcity. It is claimed that these vehicles were rescued from the scrap-yard, and brought back to running condition for the film — presumably by the REME. And as ever, there was an avid enthusiast on hand — one Sergeant Ron Clothier of the Grenadier Guards — who elected to cancel his leave to help with the refurbishment.

Young photographed his collection of Shermans performing the Welsh Guards’ first massed attack, protected by a smoke-screen, on German armour hidden in a wood. In this shot there are five of the 75mm M4A4s visible, with one of the two mocked-up 17-pdr Fireflies completely hidden by smoke in the right-hand corner. In addition to the tanks, other vehicles supplied by the BAOR included Daimler scout cars, an M3 half-track, various trucks and a field ambulance — in fact all the accoutrements to create a microcosm of an armoured division. Certainly six, or possibly seven, Shermans are seen running during the course of the picture, together with two hulks acting as battle casualties. The runners were all M4A4 Shermans (designated the Sherman V in British service), with the extended welded hull to accommodate the Chrysler Multibank engine. For the most part they bore the 60degree angle glacis with applique armour added to the driver and hull gunner’s positions, the original three-piece transmission cover, early cast turret and commander’s hatch plus the wide gun mantlet and 75mm gun, and drove on metal chevron tracks. Of course there were some variations to this: there were mudguards and the odd headlight missing. One had rubber chevron tracks, one or two others had grouser extensions attached to their tracks. Some carried applique armour on their hull and turret

Real or reconstruction? A Sherman roars across a field past a dead cow — a familiar feature of the Normandy campaign — towards a knocked-out Jagdpanther on the edge of the wood before it in turn is brewed up — the final victim of a Tiger. The tank attack was recreated on Lüneburg Heath in Germany and the cattle cadavers were dummies produced by a company in the UK. 42

sides, whilst another did not have it fitted at the front to protect the driver and hull gunner. One Sherman, dubbed Llandudno (the third to bear the name in the film), commanded by Morgan, in a scene where the Guards link up with the American paratroops at the Grave bridge in Holland, has the later cast one-piece transmission cover and commander’s vision cupola. Two of the tanks were converted into 17-pdr Fireflies, technically making them Sherman VCs — of sorts. Extensions were fitted to the barrels of the 75mm guns and draped with camouflage netting, but the crude approximations of the 17-pdr muzzle brake betrays them. Nonetheless, the nine Shermans being covered with stowage, netting and foliage look perfect representations of a British unit in Europe in 1944-45. Added to which, given that most of them are crewed

The aftermath of the attack. Morgan (left) remarks: ‘Well, that’s seven of them anyway’. To which Hamilton (right) responds: ‘Including a Ferdinand and a Tiger’. Certainly a late-model Tiger with steel-rimmed wheels has been knocked out, but there is no sign of a Ferdinand, though there is a dead Jagdpanther behind Hamilton. Regrettably this vehicle is only visible in some detail in a Rank publicity still.

Right: The Welsh Guards continue their advance through France, encountering a mix of enemy fire and cheering civilians. To demonstrate their progress Young used a montage of maps and original footage mixed with archive inserts. Thus the viewer sees their drive from Tilly-surSeulles via Aunay-sur-Odon, Caumont and Le Beny-Bocage, across the Seine, and finally onto Brussels. by Guardsmen, dressed absolutely authentically, the image presented is impeccable, making the transition between Young’s original footage, and archive insertions almost impossible to detect. German armour featured in the picture does not disappoint either: Young shot an impressive set-piece charge at speed by the Shermans across the Lüneburg heathland against enemy tanks in a bordering wood. The viewer sees a Tiger advance, closely accompanied by a Panzer IV with the short 75mm gun, together with an armoured car. This is a clip that is part of a bigger sequence that features in Theirs is the Glory, which in full also includes a Panther, and a JgdPz38(t) Hetzer, followed by an eight-wheeled armoured car of the SdKfz234 family. The extract used in They Were Not Divided, showing the Tiger, is reversed so that the vehicles face the British attack.

One original clip in the Aunay-sur-Odon sequence shows tanks doing stunts: driving straight to camera a Sherman is hit and careers into an adjacent building; Llandudno, following, swerves around it partly onto a raised bank, and is also hit.

The driver and commander bale out hurriedly as the vehicle careers toward camera unmanned, pursued by a third Sherman, and then crashes over onto its side, and comes to a halt upside down.

The Guards’ mad race to Brussels in early September 1944 was graphically illustrated by this shot of a Sherman crashing through a customs barrier representing the French/Belgian border.

Brussels is liberated and jubilant crowds mob the vehicles. The dialogue in this scene refers to the Welsh and Grenadier Guards both claiming to have been first to enter the Belgian capital. 43

Right: The film’s next episode deals with ‘Market-Garden’, the great airborne operation in the Netherlands that started on September 17, during which the Guards Armoured Division led British Second Army’s drive to link up with the airborne troops dropped in front of XXX Corps in an attempt to gain a bridgehead over the Rhine at Arnhem. A quick sequence shows the tanks meeting up with men of the US 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions on the road to Arnhem. Although the American paratroopers are seen to wear the correct unit badges — the ‘Screaming Eagle’ of the 101st in this scene and the ‘AA’ (All American) of the 82nd in another shot — they are not clad in authentic American paratroopers’ combat uniforms, with the typical baggy pants, but in a strange type of smock more reminiscent of that worn by German paratroops during the war. Also, the sequence has got the order of the link-ups the wrong way round, showing the 82nd first and the 101st second. In reality the Guards first contacted the 101st, in Eindhoven on September 18, and then the 82nd, at Grave on the 19th. The error is more than a montage slip-up for in a later scene 101st troopers are seen walking through Nijmegen, which leads to the suspicion that the scriptwriters really thought that this division was responsible for that sector. A second Tiger also emerges from the woods, with the commander using the loader’s hatch for some reason, seemingly advancing briefly under its own power, and firing. The Guards carry the day, and this second Tiger is later seen knocked out on the edge of the heath, burning slightly, with Morgan and Hamilton beside it debating their victory. Thus we know Young had at least one Tiger on location for his film. Left: Morgan in the lead tank, reaches the Grave bridge over the Maas river held by troops of the 82nd Airborne Division. Or rather he has reached a special effect in the form of an image of the Grave bridge, plus some surrounding countryside, including a crashed glider to the left, painted on a sheet of glass. Two paratroopers, also on the left, have been placed too far back in the scene as the tops of their heads are temporarily cut off by the bottom of the painting. By now, Morgan’s Sherman, Llandudno, is a variant fitted with the commander’s vision cupola. Its hatch cover, visible in other shots, has been removed, presumably because it intruded on the glass painting.

The Guards have reached Nijmegen. It is the evening of September 19 and (L-R) the Earl of Bentham aka ‘his Lordship’ (Rupert Gerard — on tank), a Grenadier Guards major (Anthony Dawson), Hamilton, Morgan and Noble discuss the situation. Asked by Bentham what the position is, Noble replies: ‘The [American] paratroops didn’t manage to get the bridge, so the Grenadiers are going to have a crack in the morning with them. Then, if they get it, we cross over and get the whip out. The boys at Arnhem must be wondering, you see.’ ‘Is it a big bridge?’, enquires Bentham. ‘Only the Rhine’, Noble responds, thinking that crossing Nijmegen bridge will be suicide in daylight. The next shot shows Noble driving across, looking up to the big span from his tank turret and muttering ‘Impossible, impossible’ in disbelief of its capture. (The bridge at Nijmegen is actually across the Waal river, which is in effect a branch river of the Rhine but equally wide.) 44

The race to Arnhem has bogged down, and Noble is seen sitting gloomily under an umbrella listening to the last broadcast from BBC war correspondent Stanley Maxted isolated at Arnhem — the dialogue being lifted from Maxted’s appearance in Theirs is the Glory. Their vehicles exposed on high embankment roads and held up by enemy anti-tank guns, the men are told to dig in. Noble sums it up: ‘We may have advanced a hell of a long way, but our front is only as wide as one main road.’ In a way, They Were Not Divided and Theirs is the Glory complement each other, giving two sides of the same battle. Noting that scriptwriter and director Young was ex-Irish Guards, and remembering the acrimony that existed between the airborne men and XXX Corps after Arnhem, the former accusing the ground army of having been ‘slow’, one can even regard They Were Not Divided as XXX Corps’ cinematographic answer to Theirs is the Glory.

Right: The movie does not take the story to final victory in Germany but terminates during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944/45, when the Welsh Guards are seen fighting side by side with the Americans in the snow-covered Ardennes. The Guards Armoured Division was hastily moved to the Namur area on December 21 to back up the American defence lines, but they saw little or no real action during this period, activities being limited to reconnaissance and patrolling, and it is during one of these patrols that the final sequence unrolls. Rank never released They Were Not Divided on video, so people who wanted to see it had to be content with its all too rare screenings on TV. However in 2005 Granada Ventures, who today own the Rank catalogue, licensed the film to DD Home Entertainment for DVD release, so it is now available for all to see. The viewer will be rewarded with a pleasing, nostalgic 100 minutes, or so, of a period piece that presents images and language of a bygone era, which for those of a certain age is very comforting — though the domestic scenes do not stand the test of time. But lines such as: ‘Are you using your Jeep, Bushey, I’m popping over to Div to find out the form’, delivered in a

As they survey the enemy positions, Morgan is fatally hit by an enemy shell, whereupon Hamilton stays with his American

friend, encouraging him that help is on the way, until both men are killed by a direct hit.

clipped accent, make it obvious why on its American release in 1951 Motion Picture Herald’s correspondent wrote: ‘Exhibitors should be warned that much of the dialogue is spoken with pronouncedly British accents’. That aside, the bulk of the people presenting the story are real; the British costumes, and in a number of instances, the locations, are authentic, and, needless to say, the war material is original. Young’s XXX Corps did not have to resort to plastic mouldings and longwheelbase Land Rovers for Shermans, which had partially been necessary for A Bridge Too Far, nearly 30 years later (see After the Battle No. 17). So for armour buffs it goes without saying that this picture is definitely one for the collection. They Were Not Divided is available on DVD from DD Home Entertainments (DD.20758). Right: In a final scene, Corporal O’Connor puts two small flags — one a Union Jack, the other a Stars and Stripes — on the field graves of his two comrades. Not sure which grave is which, he asks the GI (William Sylvester) that is with him: ‘Do you think they’d mind if I get it wrong?’ ‘No, you go right ahead’, says the American, putting a final touch to the film’s title. 45

This month sees the publication of a new After the Battle book by our French author Jean Paul Pallud. Titled Rückmarsch — The German Retreat from France — Then and Now, it presents the story of the German withdrawal from France in the summer of 1944 — from the last German counter-attack in Normandy launched at Mortain on August 7, through the debacle of the Falaise Pocket and the desperate crossing of the Seine river, to the miraculous recovery of the German army in the southern Netherlands and along the German border in mid-September. As we have come to expect from Jean Paul, the book is filled with magnificent ‘then and now’ comparison photographs, illustrating every phase and aspect of this dramatic episode. As an appetiser, Since 1983 when I worked for After the Battle on the production of Panzers in Normandy Then and Now, I conceived the idea of continuing the story to cover the subsequent German retreat across France — the country of my birth — during the summer of 1944. The first problem I had to solve was how to describe with clarity a very complicated period covering many days of swift-moving events all over the country. Indeed, unlike my earlier books — Blitzkrieg in the West Then and Now and Battle of the Bulge Then and Now, and D-Day Then and Now to which I contributed — the retreat did not fall naturally into a set-piece operation, neither in the strategic plans drawn up by the Allies nor the defensive reactions by the Germans. I decided to start my account with Operation ‘Lüttich’, the counter-attack launched from Mortain on August 7 which had the intention of reaching Avranches, so cutting off the rear of US Third Army. It was the failure of this operation, the last major German initiative in Normandy, that led directly to Hitler’s order to Heeresgruppe B to withdraw on August 16 — an implied admission that his armies in the West had been defeated. Right: It was the accurate description given by a soldier of the 9. SS-PanzerDivision, SS-Sturmmann Rudi Cihotzki, which led Jean Paul to identifying this location as the D46 through the Bois de Meulles, ten kilometres east of Vimoutiers on the road to Orbec. In midAugust, this was the sector where the II. SS-Panzerkorps, with the 2. and 9. SSPanzer-Divisions under command, was moving to attack westward in order to open a passage for the troops withdrawing from the Falaise Pocket. 46

we hereby present an extract from the book that well conveys the flavour of what it contains. This particular incident was recorded on 35mm film taken by a German army photographer, Kriegsberichter Zwirner. Driving east from Vimoutiers on August 17, Zwirner reached a section of road where a German ambulance convoy had just been caught in the open and shot to pieces by Allied fighter-bombers. Among his first exposures was this one taken from position [1] (see the sketch on page 50) at the point where he found the road blocked with wreckage. The two vehicles in the foreground, an Opel Super 6 and a commandeered civilian Citroën, show only minor damage but the third vehicle just in front of the Opel has been badly damaged. (BA)

RÜCKMARSCH Events accelerated incredibly during the second half of the month. As a result of the failure of the Mortain attack, the German forces in Normandy found themselves in a disastrous situation. Hemmed in in the south by the eastward advance of American units, and compressed from the north by the British and Canadian forces, what became known as the Falaise Pocket was thus

By Jean Paul Pallud formed. By about August 17 the pocket was effectively closed on the Dives river, and those German elements which had managed to escape from it, together with others which had not been involved there, were making a fighting withdrawal towards the Seine.

Scale 1:200,000

BOIS DE MEULLES

Reproduced from Michelin Sheet 55, 25th Edition, 1986

From position [1] Zwirner walked 50 metres or so further along and then took this picture from position [2]. A Citroën P45 lorry has received a direct hit, possibly from a 3-inch rocket fired by a Typhoon. Bodies lie everywhere with the particularly gruesome That river formed a formidable obstacle to the Germans trying to extricate their army but, in spite of the fact that almost all the permanent bridges were out of commission, they managed to save nearly a quarter of a million men. Over 95 per cent of those reaching the Seine succeeded in crossing together with some 90 per cent of the motor vehicles and 70 per cent of the armour. The days which followed were ones of confusion for the German command in the West. Continuous movement with staffs and technical services dispersed or being overrun; command and communication virtually nonexistent; roads congested and strafed; a flurry of directives to build new lines of defence almost immediately rendered obsolete by the flow of events . . . and all this within a matter of a few days. However, even though the withdrawing forces comprised only separated, fragmented formations, ignorant of the whereabouts and intentions of either their own or Allied troops, they showed no evidence of rout or mass collapse. The Germans succeeded in extricating fighting men of good quality, although by the time they quit France they had suffered 290,000 casualties: about 23,000 killed, 67,000 wounded and 200,000 missing. Although this was a huge German defeat, it was not necessarily a resounding Allied victory. The Allies failed to achieve even greater successes in closing the Falaise Pocket more quickly, and then enveloping those forces that escaped by sweeping along the Seine from the coast to Paris. As all After the Battle publications rely heavily on illustrations, the first challenge was to find photographs to represent the retreat (Rückmarsch in German), not an easy task since a retiring army does not waste precious time taking photographs. Fortunately a few German war reporters of the

sight of a dismembered corpse hanging from the rear canvas support. Picking his way carefully between the wrecked vehicles, Zwirner then continued to the head of the column before retracing his steps to where he had left his own vehicle. (BA)

Propagandakompanien travelled with the convoys during the mass withdrawal to the north. We must therefore thank Kriegsberichter Theobald, Casper, Kurth, Scheck, Genzler, Jesse and Müller for making this book possible. However, as all their caption sheets were lost at the end of the war, it required much painstaking detective work to trace the locations depicted. Meanwhile, over on the Allied side, photographers were enthusiastically picturing the results of the Allied victory: dead or cap-

tured Germans and wrecked vehicles of every sort. Prominent in this field were British Captain Derrick Knight and Sergeant Norman Midgley of the Army Film and Photo Unit, Canadian Lieutenants Ken Bell and Donald Grant of the Canadian AFPU, and American Sergeants Kitzerow and Irwin Leibowitz of the US Signal Corps. Also some enterprising civilians risked their lives taking photos like M. Fernand Watteeuw at Beauvais, France, and M. Octave Sanspoux at Nivelles, Belgium.

The same view along D46 as it passes the Bois de Meulles, looking eastwards. The trees have grown but the curve of the road remains the same. In all Zwirner took 27 photos here and we will follow in his footsteps on the following pages as he pictures the shattered column from end to end. 47

Having passed the Citroën lorry, Zwirner turned round to look back the way he had come and from position [3] he pictured the scene with a Phänomen Granit 1500 S ambulance (registration plate WH 838658) behind the shattered Citroën P45. Meanwhile Research for this book involved travelling all over France to trace pictures and take the comparison photographs, a task that took me over five years to complete. In this I have been helped by many local historians and like-minded enthusiasts who gave me their generous help and support, and I am indebted to the late Fernand Watteeuw and Philippe Bonnet-Laborderie of the GEMOB historical society, Stéphane Jonot of the Montmormel Mémorial, Bruno Renoult of Vexin Histoire Vivante, Daniel Rose, an expert on the Seine river and the air attacks at Rouen, and Henry Hoppe of Berlin who is able to identify any vehicle, even if only a part of the rear bumper is visible.

In following in the footsteps of the withdrawing troops, I have travelled from the French Riviera to the Dutch border and from the Channel coast to the frontier with Germany. One prominent feature in this story is the Seine river and I spent many interesting hours wandering along its banks, enjoying crossing it back and forth on ferries at the very same places used by the Germans to transport their troops across. In Rouen I explored the quays, looking for particular bollards which appeared in the wartime photography. Fortunately they have all survived and, being numbered, they are a valuable landmark which enabled me to pinpoint the exact locations for my comparison photos.

Soldiers offer the survivor some food and drink. The overturned Kübelwagen was probably already there when the column was attacked as it has been stripped of its wheels. (BA) 48

men were examining each vehicle, looking for survivors, and at least one man has been saved and put on a stretcher. In the background a Kübelwagen can be seen turning off to the left, using a makeshift bypass through the woods. (BA) Of particular interest on the left bank is bollard 224 that still shows the damage it suffered in August 1944 from burning vehicles and exploding ammunition. Along the way I have made many thrilling discoveries among the uncaptioned rolls of film in the Bundesarchiv and the French Army archives (ECPAD), for example the series of pictures showing the German withdrawal north along the Rhône valley following the Allied landing on the French Riviera. Kriegsberichter Möller was on the spot to record history in August 1944 (see pages 253255 of the book) and 60 years later I was able to retrace his route as he moved north up the valley.

Looking at the peaceful scene along the D46 today it is difficult to imagine the carnage that once occupied this stretch of road.

Having walked along the column and reached position [4], Zwirner took this shot of a section of the road littered with remains of totally wrecked vehicles. The scene of bloodshed that unrolled here was also witnessed by SS-Sturmmann Cihotzki of SS-Panzer-Pionier-Bataillon 9 as he retreated eastwards from Vimoutiers during the afternoon of August 17: ‘A column of German field ambulances has been shot to pieces by enemy fighter-

bombers. This is the most gruesome sight I’ve seen throughout the whole war. The ambulances are burned out, and in the melted hulks you can make out the remains of men — shrivelled to such an extent by the heat that they look like dolls. Other bodies lie strewn around beside the wrecked lorries. One glance at the bloodstained, encrusted dressings is enough to make you realise that these had been helpless wounded men.’ (BA)

It is hard to believe that this is where it all happened yet the curve in the road pinpoints the spot. 49

1 2

3

From the 27 pictures taken by Zwirner, Jean Paul reconstructed the shot-up column strewn along hundreds of metres of the D46 in the Meulles wood. The drawing is approximately to scale, overlaid on an aerial photograph of the road. From west (left) to east (right) there were a civilian Citroën, an Opel Super 6 and an unidentified vehicle; a Phänomen Granit ambulance,

a Citroën P45 lorry and the Kübelwagen in the ditch; a Renault AGC ambulance; a Kfz 12 Horch and a Phänomen Granit ambulance in the ditch; another disabled Phänomen Granit ambulance and an NSU motorcycle; a Peugeot DMA ambulance and a Simca 5; a Renault AFB ambulance and a Renault AHN or AHR with trailer.

Having passed a motorcycle (possibly an NSU 351/501 OSL) with a Streib sidecar, Zwirner turned round again at position [5] to look back the way he had come. The burned-out lorry in the foreground would seem to be another Phänomen Granit ambulance. The wrecked vehicle in the background, which can also be seen on the left in the photo on page 49, appears to be a Kfz 12 Horch. Beyond lies a Renault AGC ambulance, clearly marked and flying a Red Cross flag. (BA)

As for the pictures of the shot-up German ambulance convoy reproduced in the present article, although a long time elapsed between obtaining the photos and identifying the location, in the end finding the correct spot proved to be relatively easy. I first came across the pictures in the late 1980s, while doing photo research at the Bundesarchiv. There were 27 of them, on a roll of film which had 30 frames in all. I obtained prints of three or four of the photos, made notes about the others, and started making a sketch to link the positions of the various vehicles seen in them. Some years later I bought Wilhelm Tieke’s book Im Feuersturm letzer Kriegsjahre, the unit history of the 9. and 10. SS-Panzer-Divisions, which had been published in Germany by Munin back in 1975. While reading this I came across an account by SS-Sturmmann Rudi Cihotzki, a member of SS-PionierBataillon 9, in which he described seeing a German ambulance convoy that had just been strafed: ‘Just as you get out of Trun, the straight road rises for several kilometres. Then the road curves to the left and comes to a hill. To the right of the hill lies a wooded area; below and to the left there is a grassy valley. On this hill, a column of German field ambulances has been shot to pieces by enemy fighterbombers.’ Cihotzki also gave the date when he saw this, August 17. I did not immediately link this account with the photos I had obtained from the Bundesarchiv. It was not until some time later, in the early 1990s, that it dawned on me Left: Further along, at position [6], Zwirner took a wider shot looking in an easterly direction. In the foreground a Simca 5 displays a large Red Cross flag on its roof. Further up the road is another ambulance alongside a burnedout lorry and trailer. Two men are checking the Simca, no doubt for medical supplies. The one with the Red Cross armband may be one of the survivors of the medical column; the second man is an Obergefreiter. (BA)

50

8

7

6

4

5

that Cihotzki’s account referred to the same incident as that depicted in the photos. This realisation led me in 1993 to the right spot six kilometres east of Vimoutiers on the road to Orbec. Although Cihotzki had confused Trun with Vimoutiers, with such a remarkably precise description, it was not a difficult place to find. From the beginning I was sure that others must also have read Cihotzki’s account (which had meanwhile also been used in Herbert Fürbringer’s book 9. SSPanzer-Division published by Heimdal in France in 1984) and, from that, have found the location, probably even before me. Yet, surprisingly, I never saw a detailed study published on it. Right: From position [7], still looking eastwards but closer to the pair of disabled vehicles seen on the page opposite, Zwirner photographed this ambulance, which at first sight appears to be unscathed yet a casualty who has taken shelter underneath has not survived. (BA)

Having passed the ambulance and burned-out lorry pictured above, Zwirner turned round at position [8] to look back down the column. The ambulance (right) appears to be a Renault AFB and the lorry (left) a Renault AHN or AHR. Zwirner’s photos

show odd men dealing with the shot-up column, but also, as illustrated here, individuals who appear to be continuing on their way on foot regardless of the destroyed vehicles (see also the paratrooper in the centre picture on the page opposite). (BA) 51

10 9

Further east, a lorry (which looks like a Renault PRC variant) on its side with an Opel Super 6 in the opposite ditch; a Renault AGC ambulance and a SdKfz 7/2 half-track AA gun; then three unidentified cars and lorries; remains of a Schwimmwagen Another event where I discovered the correct place and time was the sequence showing the 84. Infanterie-Division moving through Beauchêne prior to Operation ‘Lüttich’ (pages 23-27 of the book). I was so pleased to find the correct location for these photos as I was tired of seeing this series being repeatedly captioned incorrectly as showing elements of the 2. Panzer-Division in June 1944. One real triumph was being able to identify the correct spot in a well-known series of photos taken by Kriegsberichter Genzler

showing another convoy caught in the open by Allied aircraft (pages 129-134). Initially, I was led astray when one published source claimed that the pictures had been taken at Ormes, 30 kilometres south of Elbeuf, but when I went there I quickly saw that this location was incorrect. Tracing this particular stretch of road with no identifying features seemed an impossible challenge but I finally succeeded by reading the map over the shoulder of the Germans looking at it in one of the photos, which enabled me to eventually find it at La Haye-du-Theil.

From position [9], still looking westwards back the way he had come, Zwirner took another general view of the wrecked column. The lorry on its side had quite probably broken down 52

which has been blown into the ditch (not shown on the sketch); a Kübelwagen, a Renault AGC ambulance and another Schwimmwagen; a Peugeot 402 in the ditch; an SdKfz 251/8 ambulance and two Fiat/Spa TM40 tractors. Other photographs showed Tiger ‘104’ abandoned in a field. They are very important as they show the tank now displayed in the Armoured Fighting Vehicle Wing of the Royal Military College at Shrivenham and I just had to establish exactly where this particular Tiger had been knocked out. The college had no definite information and the location suggested in many printed sources – Magny-en-Vexin – turned out to be incorrect. I finally identified the precise spot 40 kilometres away in a field just west of Beauvais (see page 282 of the book).

some time before the convoy was attacked and been pushed off the road then. Some distance behind are the Simca and the Peugeot ambulance seen in the earlier pictures. (BA)

13

11

12

Above: Having walked on another 100 metres or so, Zwirner performed another about-turn at position [10] to face westward. This is — or rather was — a SdKfz 7/2, a quadruple 20mm antiaircraft gun on a semi-tracked chassis, which has also received a direct hit, its faintly readable registration plate indicating that it belonged to a Waffen-SS unit, possibly the 9. SS-Panzer-Division. Out of the 30-plus vehicles that appear along this stretch of road, this is the only one fitted out with armament. Nearby lies another disabled ambulance, a Renault AGC. (BA) My final problem was where to end the book . . . at which point did the retreat end. By mid-September the recovery of the German forces along the 650 kilometres between the North Sea and Switzerland clearly marked the end of this phase, thus giving me the logical point to end my Rückmarsch story. Right: It happened here over 60 years ago. 53

Now having reached the head of the convoy, Zwirner took this photograph from position [11] showing a Kübelwagen lying just behind another Renault AGC ambulance. The Kübel features a faintly readable ‘WH’ registration plate and the Renault bears markings that identifies the medical unit as the KrankenKraftwagen-Zug 3. Across the road lies a Schwimmwagen and inspection of the original print under a magnifying glass reveals the insignia of the 12. SS-Panzer-Division. (BA)

Above: Having passed between the Fiat/Spa tractor and the armoured ambulance (which appears to have suffered a frontal hit from a rocket fired by a Typhoon), Zwirner looked back up the road again, taking this shot from position [13] showing a second disabled Fiat/Spa TM40 tractor just in front of the SdKfz 251/8. In all, at least ten of the vehicles in Zwirner’s photos are clearly-marked ambulances. The cars, such as the Opel in the ditch and the Simca, carried large Red Cross flags on their roofs and the small NSU motorcycle had four crosses in addition to a flag on the sidecar. It is fairly certain that the two wrecked Phänomens shown on pages 49 and 50 were also ambulances. Although the tactical marking on the rear of the Renault ambulance (see top of this page) indicates that it belonged to Kranken-Kraftwagen-Zug 3, this is not sufficient information to identify the precise medical unit to which this ambulance platoon belonged. Right: Zwirner finally climbed onto the SdKfz 251/8 ambulance to take this shot of the interior where one of the patients, a Hauptmann, lay dead on a stretcher. The SdKfz 251/8 was designed to carry two stretcher cases and four seated wounded or up to ten sitting wounded. All armament was removed and large red crosses were applied as per the provisions of the Geneva Convention. (BA) 54

Standing between the Renault ambulance and the Schwimmwagen at position [12], Zwirner took this shot showing a SdKfz 251/8 (an armoured ambulance) beside a ruined Fiat/Spa TM40 tractor. As with the Kübelwagen in the previous picture, the faint ‘WH’ plate on the ambulance indicates that the medical unit belonged to the army. The Kettenkrad and Kübelwagen manoeuvring in the background appear not to be from the medical convoy as both are undamaged. (BA)

Still standing on the top of the ambulance, Zwirner took this final shot looking back down the column; this is the Renault ambulance that we saw from the rear on the page opposite. In the ditch in the right foreground is the Peugeot 402 and further along what appears to be part of a blown-up Schwimmwagen.

The SdKfz 7/2 flak wagon and Renault AGC ambulance that we saw on page 53 can be seen in the distance. In between lie more wrecked vehicles but as these do not appear on any closer picture, they cannot really be identified with any precision. All reproduced from our new book Rückmarsch Then and Now (BA)

One last look along the D46 at the Bois de Meulles, once the theatre of such dramatic action. 55