'''PACT

Sept.-Oct., 1945
---SWAN SONG---
This is the final issue of IMPACT. It is devoted en tirely to the
part played by the Army Air Forces in the war against Japan. No at·
tempt has been made to give a full account of the achievements of the
Navy, Marines and Ground Forces.
It is believed appropriate, in this swan ong, to identify tho e who
have produced the magazine. IMPACT was brought to life in April,
1943, by Mr. (then major, later li eutenant colonel ) Edward K.
Thompson of LIFE magazine. He was succeeded in June, 1944, by a
group of three edi tors: Lt. Col. Robert E. Girvin, form e rly of the
San Francisco CHRONICLE; Major Maitland A. Edey and Capt. Tom
Prideaux, both formerly of LIFE. At war's end the editorial staff also
included Capt. Peter B. Greenough, form erly of the Cleveland PLAIN
DEALER ; Capt. Gordon G. Macnab, formerly of the Associated Press
and Capt. Hugh Fosburgh, formerly of LIFE. Layouts have been
by Sgt. David Stech, form erly of the Popular Science Publishing Co.,
and maps and art by Sgt. Jerry Cominsky, former New York free lance
artist, and Sgt. Frank Chilton, formerly of the New York WORLD
TELEGRAM. Capt. Carl E. Hill has erved as execu tive officer. All
else has been in the able hand of Miss Mary C. Morgan, form er ly
of the Montgomery, Ala., hi gh school.
Throughout its life, IMPACT has been printed by Schneidereith
& Sons, Baltimore, Md.

---CONTENTS---
Part 1-INTRODUCTION -A n analysi of why the Japan ese lost the
war, pp. 1·5.
Part 2-THE LONG TREK -The story of the Fifth, Thirteen th, Seventh
and Eleventh Air Forces, pp. 6·31.
Part 3-ASIA FLANK-Story of the Tenth Air Force in India and th e
Fourteenth in China, pp. 32·41.
Part 4-BLOCKADE-The war of attrition against Jap shipping and th e
B-29 mining blockade of the Hom eland, pp. 42-51.
Part 5-THE B-2gerS -The life and achievements of the 20th Air
Force in tbe Marianas, pp. 52-83.
Part 6-B-29 PAYOFF-How the Twentieth Air Force wrecked the Jap
war economy in five months, pp. 84-93.
Part 7-ATOM BOMB -The two jolts at Hiroshima and Na{!asaki:
Some speculation on the future, pp. 94-101.
Part B-FINALE-What the Japanese themselves have to say about the
effectiveness of the B-29, pp. l02-Back Cover.

PICTURE CREDITS: Thi. i•• ue of IMPACT con tain , "inure, from

three particular sources. First. to L IFE
Magazine IMPACT 'S thanktl fOT th e following: 99, bottom ; JOO. 101 . bottom:
)04, bottom; 110. bottom; 111, top: 112, 113 and back cove r , a ll laken by
George Silk; and 65. tak en by W. Eugene Smith. In addition, tw o AAF
phologrsl}hers were assigned epecificalJy to ob tain pictures for thi s issue of
IMPACT. They ace Capt. Loom is Dean, who look the following: 52. 54. top
left ; 56, 57. 59. 66, except top left: 67. 68. bOllom; 70.71. 73. 77.81.82. top
and center; 83: and Capt. David F. Stevens. who took th e following: 98. 99,
top; 101. top; 102. 104, top; 105. 106. 107, 108, 109 . 1l0. top; Ill . bollom left.

(Correction : The detonations along shore during the Balikpapan invasion 8.S pictured
on pages 46·47, IMPA CT, Volume 3. No.8, were mis takenly altribu ted in the ("aillion
to aeria l bombardment. The explosions. immediately inshore o f the first wave of
amphibious tractors. were cBused by rocke ts lired by LCI gun boats and rocket shil)s
of Amphibious Group Eight . U. S. Pacilic Fleer. On the same I)ages. Balikpupan
beach defen ses were mistakenly identilied as stee l rod s. actua ll y they were log
bD.rricades which we re destroyed by amphib ious underwater demdilion learns mukint
it possible for th e Altstralians to be delivered on the beachhead with dry feet.)

Printed for official use with approval of the Bureau of the Budget,
Executive Office of th e President.
 THE BEGINNING
~--~~~~~~~
Pearl Harbor, 7 Dec. 1941

INTRODUCTION
Why the Mortal Japs Failed as
On 7 December, 1941, some crude leaflets fluttered down
on the carnage of Oahu. They said-"Goddam Americans
all go to hell." Period.
This first abysmal effort at psychological warfare proved
one thing. It proved that the Japs knew as little about us
as we knew about them. A dispassionate observer on Hickam
fi eld might well have waved his hand at the departing Japs
and answered their leaflets on behalf of the American people
-"You dumb bastards."
We sensed, even then, that the Japs had made a stupendous
blunder such as on ly a misinformed , benighted , naIve people
could make. Although we were appalled and frightened by
what had happened, we knew that so me time, somehow, the
Japs would be so rry. Not "so so rry." Just plain sorry.
The average American didn't have the slightest idea how
we were goin g to beat the Japs. He had never thought much
about it. He kn ew that Japan was an island off the coast of
Asia inhabited by a preposterous musical comedy species of
humanity. He knew that to get there yo u had to cross the
Pacific-a huge expanse dotted by some islands named
Waikiki, Guam, the Philippines, Tahiti- and inhabited by
hu las, mi ssionaries, and whales. That was about all. He had
never heard of logistics. He had never heard of a task force.
He had never heard of radar, amptracks, very long range
bombers, LSTs, or Genera l Kenney. He fi gured he didn't
need to know about th em, because he knew that they'd come
along as and when necessity demanded. They always had.
They would again. Anybody who didn't think we could beat
the Japs was just plain dumb.
The Japs didn't think so. In fact, they reveled in a spirit
of in vi ncib ility. Enhanced by centuries of victorious tra·
diti on, cu Itured by myths and fairy tales, and bolstered by
yea rs of one·track education, Japan ese confidence of victory
was even greater than our own.
The Japs had somethin g whi ch we didn ' t have. They had
a scheme. It was a grandiose scheme that befitted true Sons
of Heaven. We came to know of it as "The Greater East Asia
Co·prosperity Sphere." The name was illusory because it
The crew of the California abandon the ship as it settl es
down in the waters of Pearl Harbor. Th e Oklahoma has
already capsized and its hottom can be seen in background.
Part I
~~Sons 01 Heaven ~~
entailed a great deal more than Asia and had nothin g what·
ever to do with co·prosperity.
It had been in the back of the Japanese mind just about as
long as the Japanese had been trying to become a modern
nation-ever since Commodore Perry reawoke them to the
fact that there was a wo rld going on.
For two hundred years prior to that time, the Japanese
had been living a proud, feudal, insulated existence-
and had liked it-or at least the ruling Japanese liked
it, which is all that has eve r mattered in Japan. Commodore
Perry did not convince them that they were backward and
ridiculous. On the contrary, he merely convinced them that
if they were going to maintain their separate existence, they
would have to incorporate modern methods and expand the
area of insulation. That, in brief, is the Greater East Asia
Co· prosperity Sphere-a great realm where Japanese ideas
and ideals would be immune from the provoking influences
of the Occident, large enough to provide all the necessities
and luxuries of life, and long enough and wide enough and
powerful enough to be impenetrable.
The Japanese scheme failed.
It can be argued that the Japs never had a Chinaman's
chance anyway-that they were a bush league club playing
in the big time, and were just lucky to knock a couple of
balls over the fence in the first inning. But we can be more
specifi c than that.
The Japs fail ed, first of all, because Germany fail ed.
Japan predicated the assumption of victory on a German
victory and plann ed her grand strategy on that assumption .
History will show that Stalingrad was a catastrophe-for
Japan no less than for Germany.
The Japs failed , secondly, because they could not keep
pace with Allied production. They started the war with
ntlme rical superiority in practica lly every field of army and
navy equipment and vastly increased that superiority in the
opening months of the war by attrition against the Allies.
Th ereafter, the sca les turned quickly against them. When
the U. S. finall y brought strategic bombers to bear on the
Home Islands, so that production and attrition would work
hand in hand , the Japs didn 't have a chance. They were faced
with Alli en superiority in p lan es, ships, and all the impedi·
Continu,ed on next page
3
 INTRODUCTION continued

menta of war which rapidly snowballed to stupefying pro- The bombers were incapable of sustaining an offensive that
portions. really packed a wallop . The fighters were increasingly in-
The Japanese failed , thirdly, because they did not possess effective against Allied bombers that were forever flying
a scientific " know how" to compete qualitatively. Jap equip- places and doing things that the Japs hadn't anticipated soon
ment rapidly became inferior to ours. At the end of the war enough. The Japs learned about big time air war but they
they did not have one single operational weapon which was learned it the rough way-just as guinea pigs learn about
superior to ours or which we could not have produced. In shock treatment from scientists.
the critical new weapon developments of this war, Japan The Japanese failed, last of all, because their men and
was practically at a standstill while the Allies were racing officers were inferior-not in courage--but in the intelligent
ahead. Japanese radar was crude by our standards. She had use of courage. Japanese education, Japanese ancestor wor-
nothing that even approximated a B-17 or a B-24--let alone ship, and the Japanese caste system told off time after time
a B-29. And she was constantly perplexed, bewildered, and in uninspired leadership and transfixed initiative. In a pre-
confounded by a galaxy of Allied weapons- air-to-ground dicted situation that could be handled in an orthodox man-
rockets, napalm, computing sights, proximity fuses, aerial ner, Japanese soldiers were always competent and sometimes
mines, bazookas, flame throwers, the atom bomb. It was these resourceful. Under the shadow of frustration, however, the
things, and the Japanese inability to produce them, which obsession of personal honor extinguished the spark of
the Nip post mortem artists are blaming for their defeat. ingenuity; and a deteriorating situation would provoke an
increasingly irrational resistance. The Japanese air force's
The Japanese failed because their high command failed.
attempt to break up the Leyte landing is a case in point. For
Japanese strategy was based on the assumption that the
days, the Japs tried conventional bombing tactics and were
United States could be surprised and beaten before we could
shot down by the hundreds without doing appreciable dam-
arm ourselves and fight back effectively. They made the
age. Failing in this, the only improvisation they could
mistake of believing their own propaganda- that there was
conjure up was suicide attack. Contrast this desperate
internal dissension in the United States, that Americans were
failure with Allied success in the Battle of the Bismarck
peace loving and decadent, and that it would take them years
sea, when less than 150 miscellaneous Fifth Air Force planes
to switch from luxury production to war output. "Goddam
coordinated tactics and techniques to skip-bomb, machine
Americans all go to hell." Enough said.
gun, and precision drop an entire convoy to the bottom with-
Japanese strategists and tacticians fought their war in range of a numerically superior Jap air force.
straight out of the rule books. The rule books were never All of these failures add up to one thing. The execution
revised until the Japs learned, through ugly experience, that of Japanese plans was not equal to the grandiose demands
they were obsolete, and when the Allies got out editions of of their strategy. They found out that the exquisite ambitions
their own, or fought off the cuff, the Japs were dumbfounded of the Sons of Heaven could not overcome the limitations of
and incapable of effective countermeasures. A case in point the common, mortal Jap.
was the Jap belief that "unsinkable aircraft carriers" would
But sometimes we were lucky_ We must admit that. We
afford impregnable barriers to our advance across the Pacific.
were lucky, those fi rst few months, to be fighting an enemy
When it was proven that su perior carrier air power could
who was mentally incapable of exp loiting hi& advantage.
knock out island bases, and land-based planes could keep
We were lucky the Japs didn't throw everything at Oahu .
them neutralized, the Japs had no alternative defense.
And we were lucky at Port Moresby when General Mac-
Japanese strategists apparently could not foresee a situa- Arthur played them for suckers with a superb bluff on a
tion in which they did not have the initiative. Their con- bust hand. After that. the deal shifted, and all the luck in
ception of war was built around the word "attack." When the cards couldn't help the Japs to escape the show-down.
they were put on the defensive, it took them a long time to By the time the American offensive got started at Guadal-
learn that there were better stratagems than an heroic
Banzai charge and, when the trend was against them, they One of Lt. Col. Doolittle's B-25s takes off from the deck
sometimes lost their capacity for straight thinking and
blundered themselves into a mess. Witness the Marianas
incident, when the cream of the naval air force was caught
outside its radius of action , or the Yamato engagement, when
the pride of the Jap fleet, in a futile move toward Okinawa,
was sunk by carrier planes. Or the first weeks on Guadal-
canal, when the Japs couldn't utilize an overwhelming air
superiority efficiently enough to wipe out Henderson field.
The Japanese strategists did not understand , until too late,
the potentialities of air power. Like the Germans they
thought of air power in terms of an attack weapon to be
used as support for naval forces and ground armies. Be-
cause they themselves had no formula for the use of stra-
tegic air power, they overlooked the possibility that it would
he used against them and so were unprepared to counter it.
The JAF was built around a force of short range bombers
and fighters that were flimsily built, armorless, fire traps.

4
 canal on 7 August, 1942, the Japs had gone a long way
toward reaching their goal of strategic isolation. The Allies
were pushed back to India, to Australia, to Hawaii, to Alaska
-to bases so far distant that only an occasional submarine
could scratch feebly at the jugular vein, and only Lt. Col.
Doolittle's monumental gesture of defiance could cause a
momentary tremor of the heart itself.
Although the Japanese empire was vast and her armed
forces formidable, she was vulnerable. Japan had delicate
arteries and a bad heart. The value of her captured land
masses and the armed forces that defended them was in
direct proportion to the ability of her shipping to keep them
supplied. to keep the forces mobile, and to bring back to
Japan the raw materials that make it possible to wage
modern war. Destroy the shipping. and Japan for all prac·
tical purposes would be four islands without an empire-
four islands on which were a few dozen made·to-burn cities
in which were jam packed the people and the industry that
together made up the Japanese war machine. Destroy the
shipping and burn the cities, and the whole empire complex
would be like forsaken puppets-lifeless without strings and
a master hand to play them.
The e were the basic conceptions of American strategy-
a war of attrition against Japanese shipping that would be
waged on an ocean·wide front coincidentally with a gouging
thrust straight towards the Home Islands-to positions
where land based bombers could sever the arteries and
pound away at the heart.
The future course of the Allied offensive was determined
at Guadalcanal. It seemed a long way to Tokyo. It was.
It seemed like a pretty small beginning. It was. It seemed
like a lot of men and time and effort going into the acquisi·
tion of a jungle mud hole.
It was worth it. The Japanese reaction to our landing was
proof enough of its strategic value. But the Guadalcanal
operation paid off in higher terms than real estate. We
prospected a theory on Guadalcanal and brought in a gusher.
The theory was that an Allied force, working with an air·
field and some planes (a muddy jungle slash and obsolete
fighters would do) could beat off the Japs and eventually
push them back to decisive defeat. We did just that. Armed
o/the Hornet to 110mb Japanese cities 011 18 April 1942.
".
:"1':
with confidence and the promise of increased capital in the
form of more and better planes, ships, and equipment, and
more men, the prospects of developing the whole field into
a bonanza looked excellent. We could go ahead.
The technique of triphibious warfare was evolved and be·
came so standardized in its pattern that it was almost a
ritual. Submarines were usually the advance agents, snoop·
ing, harassing, diverting, and raising hell with enemy supply.
Long range reconnaissance bombers might be the next on the
scene or it might be a carrier task force that would come
quickly, concentrate a Sunday punch on the enemy air force
and shipping, and retire before the Japs could bring tactical
superiority to bear. There would follow a few weeks. or
perhaps months, when land based planes would take over
the job of interdicting the base, neutralizing the air facilities,
and knocking out the gun positions and trong points. In due
time, the landing force would arrive, escorted by a suitable
task force which would do as much as artillery preparation
and aerial bombardment could do to smooth the way; and
then the ground forces would establi h a beachhead and
push inland; and then the combat engineers, or the Seabees,
or the construction battalions, or the air engineers, or per·
haps all of them, would take over, with bulldozers and
carbines; and then an airfield would be ready and planes
would start to come in, artillery spotters first, then the
fighters and night fighters , and then the bombers; and then
the place would be declared secure, and the Japs would write
off one asset and we would start to process another.
For a long time it was muddy going in low gear but in
1944 the Allied offensive started to roll. By that time we had
definite superiority, quantitative and qualitative. in ships,
planes, equipment, and technique. General MacArthur
hedge.hopped up the islands towards the Philippines.
Kwajalein and then Eniwetok fell in short snappy cam·
paigns. And Navy task forces, no longer tied down to direct
support operations, flexed their muscles and paraded forth
to cuff the enemy in his vaunted strongholds and to slap his
face with the established fact that from henceforth the
U. S. would make a hobby of the Pearl Harbor game.
June 15, 1944 was the day that the American offensive
reached level ground and switched to high gear. That was
the day that China·based B·29s cast their shadows on Yawata
and that wa the day that forces stormed ashore on Saipan.
It was the day that the Japanese high command had to admit,
to themselves at least, that their beautiful dream of insula·
tion had turned into an horrendous nightmare.
Having taken the Marianas, we were finally in a position,
with the B·29, to wage a strategic war of attrition against
the Japanese empire. From here on in, the increase of Allied
strength would go hand in hand with the deterioration of the
Japanese capacity to fight back. We were ready to launch
a vicious spira I of destruction from which there cou Id not
possibly be any escape. If the Japanese backed up farther,
we would advance more quickly. If they chose to stand and
fi ght, we would destroy them and have so much less to cope
with later on. It was as simple as that. It was as simple as
that because the Allies had ama ed a power that was titanic.
The Japanese could not stand up to it and there was no place
they could go to get away from it. They had no immovable
object to place against the irresistible force. Eventuanv
they had just one final choice-give up or be de troyed. .
5

THE LONG TREK
Across the Pacific It Was
The road to Tokyo started where it had to; started from
where we picked ourselves up after being kicked out of the
Philippines, out of the East Indies, out of all the places
within reach of Japan.
It was a long trek, made over a bridge whose spans were
pushed forward one by one and anchored to bases won by
the combined strength of land , sea and air. This is the
story of how we got to our starting point, and how the Army
Air Forces helped to build and use the bridge.
On the first day of war we lost two-thirds of our aircraft
in the Pacific. Hawaii was erased as a source of immediate
reinforcements for the Philippines. And in the Philippines
where enemy attacks continued, our planes were \\ hittled
down rapidly. The kicking out phase was under way, with
the 19th Bombardment Group taking its 14 B-17s to Aus-
tralia and then to Java for a brief but futile stand. The 24th
Pursuit Group continued to give such aid as it could to the
troops as they gradually gave ground in the Philippines, but
its extinction was in sight before the end of 1941.
The air effort to hold the Netherlands East Indies radiated
from a main air base at Ma lan g, Java. Japan's 10-to-1
numerical air superiority and the swift onrush of its invad-
ing troops soon forced abandonment of all hope. In late
February 1942 evacuation was ordered and by early March
the planes of the Fifth Air Force_ around which Southwest
Pacific air strength was to be built, were in Austra lia.
Fearful anxiety gripped Australia. The Japanese sweep-
ing in through the East Indies, had brought Port Darwin
and other western cities under a ir attack. While battering
the Fifth Air Force, they launched another prong of their
offensive with air attacks on northern New Guinea, the
Admiralty islands, New Ireland, New Britain and the
Solomons. Australia was being sea led off from the north.
Late January landings at Kavieng, Rabaul and Bougainville
made it clear that Australia's supply line from the United
States was threatened. The same landings would protect the
enemy's left flank and serve as springboards for invasion of
the island continent.
So long, Sally. Bursting parabombs beat an accompani-
ment to this refrain from Guadalcanal to Borneo, Tarawa to
Tokyo. This Sally was shattered by 5th AF on Boeroe, N.E.L
Part 2
Hop~ Skip and Jump
The Fifth Air Force had arrived in Australia from Java
with virtually no fighters and few bombers. It was a
negligible factor until replacements could arrive. Australia
itself was similarly weak. Outpost garrisons in its island
possessions to the north were over-run and it had only 43
operational combat planes. The gravity of the situation
was apparent and reconnaissance planes' reports of massed
enemy shipping at Rabaul increased the tension. Just to
the north of Australia, in southern New Guinea, was Port
Moresby. Its loss to the enemy would eliminate Townsville
and other northeastern Australian cities as plane bases,
would shove our planes back from within reaching distance
of Rabaul. When in early March a Jap convoy sent troops
ashore at Lae and Salamaua in northern New Guinea, the
noose was beginning to settle. Planes from two U. S. car-
riers opposed the Lae-Salamaua landing, sinking 15 vessels
after spanning the mountains from the gu lf of Papua, but
the landing went on.
Coral Sea and Midway
The victory-flushed enemy, annoyed but not seriously
worried by the Doolittle Tokyo raid of 18 April, then
pushed a convoy into the Coral sea, aiming it at Port
Moresby. Two carriers, seven cruisers, 17 destroyers, 16
unidentified warships, 21 transports and two submarines
were spotted by a reconnaissance plane on 4 May. U. S.
fleet units, concentrated in Australian waters, cha llenged it.
Land-based planes struck at enemy airfields at Lae and
Rabaul to neutralize them, while carrier planes attacked the
convoy. It was an air engagement. Neither fleet's surface
units got within gun range of the other. By 9 May the
battle was over, the convoy routed by the carriers. The Japs
had suffered their first major defeat of the war and Port
Moresby had a new lease on life.
Then came the events which slowed the tempo of Jap
expansion and stab ilized the outer perimeter of the enemy's
conquests in the Pacific. On 3 June, Ja p warships were
sighted west of Midway. B-17s of the Seventh Air Force
reached out to them for initial attacks while our carriers
under forced draft got within fighter range. As in the
Battle of the Coral Sea there was no contact between surface
forces. and also as in the earlier engagement, the Japs
Continued on next page
7
 LONa TREK continued
suffered a crushing defeat. Four carriers, two cruisers, three
destroyers and a transport were sunk, others were damaged
and 275 of the enemy's planes hit the water. We lost a
carrier, a destroyer, 150 carrier planes, two B-17s and two
B-26s_ Our Navy's carrier arm had established it superior-
ity over the Jap's; had depleted the enemy's carrier forces
so sharply that never again could Japan strike as swiftly, in
as great strength, over as vast an area as she had before_
While the Midway force was steaming toward di aster,
another group of vessels was playing hide and seek in the
Aleutian fog. It lost a lone plane over our then secret hase
at Umnak on 3 June and launched its attack on Dutch
Harbor the next day. It was met by fighters from Cold Bay
and Umnak, and our bombers sought the carrier force . A
few contacts were reported, and a carrier was damaged,
but the weather was so bad that vessels could be held in
sight for only a few minutes at a time. The Japanese with-
drew under cover of the fog and a week later reconnaissa nce
showed them in possession of Kiska and Attu.
The Early Days in New Guinea
The Midway reverse slowed the enemy, broke the previ-
ously unrelieved gloom in which the Allies moved, but did
not eliminate the tension in Australia or the threat to Port
Moresby. Moresby was under unremitting air attack; was
too hot for heavy bombers which moved to it from Towns-
ville, refueled, hit Rabau I, and scampered back to Australia.
But Moresby was an essential in the MacArthur promise to
return to the Philippines. General George C. Kenney, who
took command of the Fifth Air Force, gave assurance that
with the few planes he had, plus expected reinforcements, he
could get and hold air superiority. And so, despite con-
tinuing air attacks and the ever-present possibility of assault
from the sea, Moresby was developed through the spring
and summer of 1942, with seven landing strips taking shape.
It was the base we had to have to trade blows with the
enemy; the base from which we could reach Rabau I.
Moresby could be held only if Kenney's planes could
meet the Jap air attacks and beat them down, exacting a
heavy toll while husbanding their own numbers. They had
to do it with far too few planes which had to fly too many
hours in every week. They had to do it with planes which
could not match the Zero in maneuverability, in speed of
climb or speed in level flight. But they had some tools the
Japs lacked. They had the B-17, a weapon which could
outreach anything the enemy had, striking from bases
relatively immune to attack. They had fighter planes which
were built for defense as well as offense and would not
become flaming torches at the flick of the enemy's trigger.
They had men, too, with ingenuity in maintenance, Hying
and tactics. These were the things which kept the Fifth Air
Force in Moresby through the spring and summer of 1942.
Then in late July the Japs landed at Buna, Gona and
Sanananda on the northeast coast of New Guinea, just over
the Owen Stanley mountains from Moresby. They started
to push up the Kokoda trail while Australians fought a
delaying action in retreat. Kokoda fell , the Japs pressed on
through the mountain pass-and then Port Moresby began
to payoff. Troops staged there moved out to meet the enemy
in the mountain jungles. The Fifth's planes got their first
taste of co-operation with ground troops under conditions of
8
tremendous difficulty. As they strafed and bombed Japs
along the trail and hit at supply dumps, they rarely saw
thei r targets, concealed in the jungles. Vague reference
points in a confusing welter of trees and valleys and ridges
were all they had. But they struck at them and at airfields
and at coastal shipping. They flew as long as the planes
would hold together, then tied them up with stray bits of
wire and flew some more. They improvised: old P-4-00s
(modified P-39s ) were turned into dive bombers with a
500-pound bomb slung underneath. And then as the Aus-
tralians stopped giving ground and halted the Japs just
30 miles from Port Moresby, the Fifth Air Force played its
biggest role in the campaign, sparkin g the start of Mac-
Arthur's since-famed hop, skip and jump warfare.
With Gona-Buna in enemy hands, Port Mo.resby would
never be secure, Rabaul could not be neutralized and an
advance out of the Southwest Pacific could not get started.
The Papuan campaign was initiated with the ground push
back across the Kokoda trail and an airborne leap of 15,000
men across the mountains to near Buna. The Troop Carrier
Command ferried engineers with equipment to hack out
airstrips, then moved in the troops and their equipment. The
lack of aircraft was as acute for transport a it was for
combat, and bombers were pressed into se rvice and loaded
with artillery. The ground forces were dependent on air
supply for food , ammunition and equipment. The air sup-
ply route was maintained with its terminus almost in sight
of the Japs. Casualties were evacuated on the return flights.
Buna was overrun on 2 January 1943, and the threat to
Port Moresby was ended. The first span was in place.
Meanwhile in the late summer of 1942 the Solomons cam-
paign was started. Its immediate objective also was the
security of Australia. The Jap invasion of the Solomons had
pressed the sharp cutting edge of the expansion knife close
to the Australian supply artery. The entire push back to
the Philippines depended on building Australia into a tre-
mendous storehouse of men and materiel , and it was en-
dangered to a critical degree when Guadalcanal was oc-
cupied by the Japanese. Guadalcanal had to be retaken .
Solomons Campaign
AAF planes, later to be formed into the Thirteen th Air
Force, launched attacks from Espiritu Santo on Jap posi-
tions on Guadalcanal and Tulagi while Fifth Air Force
planes struck at Rabaul. Navy and marine fliers ranged
up and down the Solomons, striking at shipping and at air-
fields, prepariNg for the day of invasion. On 7 August 1942
the marines went ashore on Guadalcanal. For three critical
months they battled the Japs on little better than even terms.
Allied strength was barely adequate and the enemy kept
pouring reinforcements down from Rabaul. But incessant
naval and aerial patrol and attacks on shipping, gradually
cut into the Japs' ability to bolster their failing troops and
turned the tide of battle. By late October we had aerial
superiority and by mid-November, heavy bombers were
flying from Guadalcanal's Henderson field. The battle was
won and mopping up completed in February, 1943. Guadal-
canal was the first step toward Rabaul and it was followed
by invasion of the New Georgia islands in the Central
Solomons at the end of June and by invasion of Bougainville
1 November 1943. These steps put Rabaul within easy
fighter range of the Thirteenth Air Force. Its harbor and
airfields could be kept under daily attack. But Bougainville
was not taken easi ly. Ground fighting was bitter and costly.
The enemy struck with his full air power again and again,
but as in ew Guinea, the U. S. Aiers were his masters. They
had met overwhelmin g numbers and by out-Aying and out-
thinking the enemy, had racked up ratios of 10, 20 and even
30 to 1 destroyed. By late 1943 pyramiding enemy losses
coup led with mounting U. S. production made it clear that
destruction of the Jap Air Force was only a matter of time.
While Guadalcanal and Port Moresby were being made
secure and the first advances made beyond them in the South-
west Pacific, other events had been giving notice of growing
allied strength. In the Aleutians, Kiska was by-passed and a
landing made on Attu in May, 1943. This former American
island had been bombed occasionally from Adak and
Oscar makes its death turn under two Eleventh AF Mitchells
Amchitka, but persistent low-hanging clouds made it less
over Paramushiru in northern Kuriles. Landing gear of Jap
profitable for attack than Kiska. The Attu landing, then, was
fighter is seen lowering after .50 calibers ripped plane.
a surprise maneuver, going past the island most heavily
attacked and most heavily defended. Attu fell on 2 June and
American forces stood between Kiska and its supply base in
the Northern Kuriles. On 15 Augu t, Canadian and American
troops stormed ashore on Kiska and learned that the by-
passing technique was effective. There were no Japs on the
island. They had pulled out in late July under cover of a
weather front so thick that one of the evacuating destroyers
saw Little Kiska island dead ahead, thought it was an
American warship, and opened fire. Not only had American
soi l been freed of the invader by the Aleutian campaign;
we had moved into position for the Eleventh Air Force to
begin its strikes against the Kurile islands. These attacks,
which increased steadi ly as radio navigation aids and radar
les ened the need for good weather, forced the Japs to con-
sider the po sibi lity of an attack from the north, forced them
to tie up more men and planes and ships than they could
afford when their southern Aank was crumb ling.
In the Central Pacific, too, things were beginning to jell.
Wake island had been hit occasionally by the Seventh Air
Force in Aights staging from Midway, but since the Seventh
was sending most of its planes into the Solomons action
under the Thirteenth Air Force, it had little offensive power. Takeoff in snow, landing in fog. Aleutian Liberators above
In April , 1943, however, phosphate-rich Nauru and Tarawa taxi out, wait out squall , take off before next. All bases
in the Gilberts were blasted. These island continued to be fogged, B-24 below finds tiny isle at night, lands safely.
occasional targets and in September Army and Navy planes
joined to give Tarawa a thorough pasting. The exp losive
force with which the United States rocketed across the
Pacific in 1944 was beginning to gather.

Campaigns for New Guinea and the Marshalls

New Guinea's re-conquest, to spring from Australia by
way of Buna and Gona, required two things above all:
denial of reinforcements to the Japs, and protection of
Allied troops from aerial attack. The Fifth Air Force ac-
cepted major responsibility for both. The first obligation
was spectacularly fulfilled in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
Kenney's ubiquitous bombers had been roaming the coast-
lines ann ranging out to sea with increasing frequency as
the Fifth began to gather strength. On the first of March,
eontinued on page 17
 Airfield on Rabaul is under parabomb attack. Fight to neutralize Rabaul went
on when Allied air power was trickling to the Pacific and JAF was in full flood.

Hollandia str ip was a place where the Japanese Air Force met one of its major Filth AF 8-245 aided f,y heavy rains
reverses in New Guinea. B-25s are here processing the. strip into a graveyard.

BASES: THEIR DEATH

Japanese air bases never took any
blue ribbons for superior quality.
They were (and the ones still in exist-
ence are) rumdum affairs which had
all the faults and none of the beauties
of primitive handicraft. An American
heavy bomber trying to come down on
one of them might very possibly have
gone through the surface before it ran
out of runway.
Nevertheless, the air bases were ade-
quate for Japanese purposes and-
whether or not we eventually planned
to use .them-their facilities, planes,
and runways were priority targets. To
neutralize them-so that they could be
taken handily or by-passed without
On Los Negros, bomb caroms over a Jap fighter that probably never flew fear of future flank attack-was the
again anyway. Condition of field indicates Japs weren't trying hard to keep it up . first and most important preliminary

10
 Clark fi eld in pre-war days was a pretty place with compact and conspicuous
1 facilities. Japs got it virtually undamaged, turned it into a major air base.

The same fi e ld under American air attack in Jul y 1945 is deluged with pho -
washed up this airfield on Palawan.
2 phorous parabombs. Facilities are wrecked and only scattered planes remain.

AND RESURRECTION
in eve ry step on the road to Tok yo.
The job wa done well. From Rabaul
to Formosa, th e Pacific is marked with
overgrown graveyards of the Japane e
Air Force. And scattered a long with
them, from Guadal ca na l to Okinawa,
the ocean is dotted with hu ge g litterin g
bases built on the antique ruins of
Japanese outposts.
Th e struggle for the ocean air bases
had a symphon ious theme to which
th ere were end less variations. Like a
tita nic quest for gold, they were pio-
neered , claimed, exp loited, and left
behind.
Scenes from the death and resu rrec-
tion of some of the bases we wrecked,
Clark fi eld is fini shed for the Japs. Compare this picture with one at top and
th en rebuilt, and some we left to die_
a re on th ese and followin g pages. 3 note th a t J aps made no additions or changes in their three years of ownership.

,,
Maloelap in the Marshalls was as fine an air base as the The same place gets the by-pass treatment. Base is bombed
Japs could build in 20-odd years of undisputed tenancy_ often enough to keep it unserviceable for enemy aircraft.
Strip on Noemfoor is invested by paratroopers the day after it had been deluged with 230 tons of bombs.
Marines have toehold on Saipan and attack unfolds in • Aslito, two pictures below, has been taken and renamed
classic triphibious pattern. Immediate business is to make Isely. Jap planes are collected in front of ruined hangars
hold stick. Once established, Marines will drive straight for and two days later field is ready for TBFs and P·47s. For
Aslito airfield. then concentrate on wiping out Jap force. picture of Isely several months later turn to page 17 . •

' .. _...... -
The Japs hit back at Port Moresby and fuel storage goes Planes burn after a few Japs get through to bomb Funafuti.
up. Air strikes at rear bases provided occasional setbacks. JAF was confined more and more to a defensive effort.

Weather and terrain delayed the progress of airfield contruction on Leyte far more than enemy action.
Tokyo Proving ground for AAF's technique of medium· loss of 56.34 square miles (39.9 % ). Industrial Kawasaki at
altitude night incendiary bombing, the Jap capital suffered a far left had 35.2 per cent devoured by the B·29 fireworks.

Osaka 20th AF ignited conflagrations that consumed 35.1 Nagoya Fire bombs ripped the war industries of this big
per cent (17.64 sq. mi.) of Japan's second industrial city. arsenal to bits. Gutted was 40 per cent of the city proper.

91
Henderson field on Guadalcanal in August 1944 is built on the mud-hole that marines took two years before.
Tacloban on Leyle in June 1945 was already a staging Eniwetok in April 1944 was base for operations against
base and storage depot hundreds of miles from front lines. the Carolines, later became a naval air replacement depot.
Kwajalein was a mess when air and naval bombardment. Two months later, the reincarnation of Kwajalein looked
had processed it for invasion. Air power first neutralized like this and planes from here haunted the Japs all the way
Jap islands to the east which were then by-passed in a tac- to Truk and Saipan. When we moved on to the Marianas
tical surprise that literally caught the enemy off base. Kwajalein became just another way stop on the long trek . •
194~ . a reconnai ssance B-24 potted a large convoy with
destroyer escort steamin g west off the northern coast of New
Britain. It carried supplies and more than 12,000 men for
reinforcement of Lae. When word of this juicy plum was
Aashed hack to base. a flio-ht of B·17s was dispatched. The
convo y. howeve r. wa hidden in a front and contact was not
made. At dawn the next da y. the Fifth mustered all its
planes. sending A-20s to immobilize the airfield at Lae.
B·24:-: and B·17 · with P- 38 e cort to the attack. The convoy
was sighted and bombed from medium altitude. Four ship"
were "link. Later in the da y a fli ght of B· 17s attacked
aga in as th e . hips maneuvered under a cover of squalls.
That nig ht the weather changed and by morning the con·
voy was entering Huon gulf under clear skies. That was the
jackpot day.
Tests by the Proving Ground Command at Eglin field ,
Fla .. had establi hed the feasibilit y of masthead bombing-
a low· level broadside attack with the bomb plunking
sq uarely into the side of the vessel. Synchronized high.level
a ttack and accompanying fighters were recommended. Quick
10 seize on new ideas, the Fifth's B-17s successfully used
low· level attacks on ships in Rabaul harbor at night. Its
B-25s and A-20s practiced the technique on an old hulk at
I'o rl Moresby between combat miss ion . The R·25s gained
added :-:ecllrity and lethal powe r by a modification which
I!ave lhem eight forward·firin g .50 ca libe r, a modification
marie i I) th e th eate r.
Thus on 3 March 194 ~ the un lI specting Jap convoy was
keeping a date with eternity. As it entered Huon gLi If.
Beaufi ghter;; went in first. takin g the screening destroyers a;;
Iheir !'trafing targets. With AA fire lessened and scattered.
Ih e heavies picked their targets from medium altitude and
This is Isely Number One on Saipan, two weeks before the first Marianas·lwsed 8·29 takes off to IJomb Japan.
made repeated bomb runs. The B-25s and A-20s then sprang
Ihe big su rprise, raking the decks as they approached, and
dropping their bombs just before they pulled up and over
the masts. All the while, P-38s were overhead engaging the
convoy's fighter cover. The convoy was dead as darkness
fell. The next day attacks on the Lae airfield continued as
planes earched for survivors. Th e final mop·up was on 5
March when Beaufighters and B-25 put an end to rafts and
life boats. Land·based airIJower had demon strated that when
prolJerl y employed. it could stop an invade r befort' porl
could be reached. From that time on. th e Japs wt're fo rced
to s pirit their troolJs along the coast of ew Guinea al
night in camouflaged barges which hugged the shore and
darted for cover at the approach of dawn. The commitment
of the Fifth to prevent reinforcement of New Guinea had
been met.
The second of its tasks, protecting troop from air attack,
invo lved destruction of the Jap air force in such numbers
that eventually replacement would be foolhardy. That
commitment was met too. It was met by better flying in
aerial combat by surpri se attacks on airfields which de·
stroyed the g rounded planes, and by construction of airfields
in forward areas.
The next jump of MacArthur's forces from Buna was to
Lae. Not only was it in the right direction for th e move
towa rd the Philippines. but its possession would be a power·
f ul factor in the neutralization of Rabau I. In aid of the Lae
offen sive, aviation engineers made a long overland trek to
-1-0 mile" southwe"t of the comin g battlefield and cleared a
"ite for Marilinan field . A" soo n as transports could land.
C-475 moved in an airhorne enginee r battalion with all its
Continued on page 23
. ,.a.\ - ... .. :~,1;". ~*
:~ .... . ( . ... ~"IfIIt
'.".~
~ .
. ,a
"
"" "
. '"
. ~., .: ...• i-~,: ,'"
. .-
.
'-,.
 Risinf! smoke on Corref!idor shows that it is I)eing processed for invasion hy Fifth Air Force bombers. Marked on
THE RETURN TO THE ROCK
Corregidor is to Manila bay what a fuse is to a bomb.
If the fuse doesn't work, the bomb is a dud.
The Japs hoped to turn Manila bay into a dud for the
Americans by keeping Corregidor. At best they thought
they could keep it indefinitely. At worst, they were con·
fident of inflicting fearsome casualties on the American
force that would come to take it. Three years before, after
violent artillery shelling had pulverized its antiquated forti·
fications, the Japs had assaulted the rock and had been
handed 8,000 casualties by Gen. Wainwright's troops in
the first 15 hours. Now, in their hands, it was a death
trap-the kind of hell·hole where fanatical Japs love to
make a suicide stand-a massive tunneled rock with hun·
dreds of caves and hiding places that would give them a
wall for their backs and a shelter for their heads-the kind
of place where they couldn't be blasted out, where the
enemy would have to come and get them across the water and
up the cliffs.
It was a fine gruesome prospect, only the Americans
didn't want any of it. Instead of coming across the water
18
and working up, they started at the top and went down,
and the Japs found that their guns pointed in every direction
except up, and that their tunnels and caves faced the wrong
way, and that shelters over their heads protected them from
bombs, yes, but they also hid the Americans, which was very
bad. In fact everything was very bad and cou Idn't have been
much worse as far as the Jap were concerned. They put
up effective resistance for only two weeks and all 6,OOO·plus
of them were killed, except the 24 who were captured. Two
hundred and ten American oldiers lost their lives.
This fantastic operation was the end product of 30 months'
development in the art of triphibious warfare. All the tools
and specialists of air, ground and naval forces were pooled
together to turn out a perfect job.
The Corregidor return drama developed along the classic
Allied pattern. With enemy air and naval strength thor·
oughly knocked out by Navy carrier forces and the Fifth Air
Force, and with MacArthur racing toward Manila, Cor·
regidor, as a battlefield, was virtually isolated by 23 Janu·
ary, the day Fifth Air Force bombers began neutralizing
it and the neighboring mutually supporting fortresses of
Carabao, Caballo and Fort Drum. On 13 February, three
days before D·Day, the Navy pitched in with shelling by
Continued on page 20
 photograph are the two paratroop drop areas and the landing beach. Mountains of Bataan loom in background.

B-24s give the rock a good turnin g over on invasion morn· A-20s go after targets of opportunity while invasion is
ing a nd round up 25 da ys of heavy air strikes on thi s target. under wa y, later worked " on call " from ground troops.

19

Parahombs dropped by A-20s blow up gun positions_ help
keep Japs under cover just before arrival of troop planes_
Men and supplies crash down on Godforsaken Topside_ Of
2_065 men jumping_ 222 were listed as casualties_ •
Continu,ed from page 18
cruisers and destroyer. With the enemy paralyzed and
dazed. minesweepers cleared the waters around Corregidor.
After a D-Day dawn bombing by heavies_ followed by A-20s_
V Troop Carrier Command landed paratroops on top of the
smoking rock. They found only sca ttered opposition_ and et
up positions to cover amphi biolls forces arrivin g exactl y two
hours later. Shortl y thereafter reinforcemen ts could get in
without serious opposition and from then on it was just a
question of time_ As the fina I CII rtain rang down_ th ere wa~
an earth-quaking ex plosion at Monkey Point as a g roup of
Japs blew themselves up ill a typi ca l gesture of defiant
fru stration.
The picture on the precedin a pages indica tes why it wa~
decided to invade Corregidor from the air. Obviously. th e
only landing beach is in the vicinity of South Dock and
obviously any troops put ashore the re would have a bottle-
necked, murderou s fi ght to reach Topside. An ai r landin g
was perilous and problematical but it was the only alterna-
tive to slaughter. Continued on page 2:!
The plan works. Paratroo ps a re in co ntrol of Topside. and a ll except one boat are on th e way out as second wave
The Ii rst wave of landin g craft has unloaded at South Dock comes 111 . Smoke on the beach is probably from land mines.

21
LONG TREK continued
Text continued from page 20
The fea ibility of the paratroop
landing on Topside was predicated
on two assumptions. The first was
that it would catch the Japs Aat-
footed-below ground and waiting
patiently for the amphibious assau lt.
The second was that a pre-invasion
air-naval bombardment, carried right
up to the first paradrop, would drive
any Topside Japs to cover long
enough for the troops to hit the
g round and consolidate their position .
Both assumptions were correct. The
first two lifts of the 503rd Parachute
Regimental Combat Team found so
little opposition that the third lift
went to the rock by boat to avoid Holed-up Japs are blasted out at point-blank range. Portable heavy weapons cut
drop ca ualties. down American casualties by making it unnecessary to charge places like this.
The amphibious landing at South
Dock, covered by air bombardment
and Aeet units firin g into Jap posi-
tions at point blank range, was car-
ried out by units of the 3rd Battalion,
34th Infantry.
Thereafter, the two forces on
shore, one on Topside and one at
South Dock, concentrated on joining
up, while air and naval units operated
"on call" to blow up strongpoints.
Once this rendezvous had been ac-
complished and supply lines had
been secured, the battle for Cor-
regidor ettled down to the ugly
nauseating business of wiping out the
cornered Japs . . Mortars, Aame throw-
ers and 75-mm guns kept them holed
up, and demolition crews sealed them
underground . Even then, they were
dangerous. Our worst casualties of
the campaign came from the suicide Men of the 50 3rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team come down from Top-
explosions of entombed Japs . side. First contact with South Dock force has been made and the crisis i over.

nearly bla t resistant as any concrete fort can be.

Not unti l bombs tore the guns apart was it si-
lenced. Then oil was pumped through the portholes
and set afire while the Japs inside were still dazed.
Continued from page 17
equipment plus anti·aircraft guns. This field was expanded
and soon became the major base from which Wewak was put
under attack. Four Jap airfields were in the Wewak area
and all of them nested scores of planes. The big show at
Wewak preliminary to the intensive phase of the Lae cam·
paign opened on 17 August 1943. At dawn the heavy
bombers unleashed frag clusters, demolition and incendiary
bombs. They were followed by B·25s and P·38s which
scampered across the airfields disgorging parafrags, their
machine guns chattering. The performance was repeated the
next day. Then came a day of rest, followed by two more
days of the same attack pattern. The result was 228 enemy
planes destroyed on the ground and 81 shot out of the air
against our loss of 10 planes. Wewak was out of business as
a major base.
A few days later a landing east of Lae was effected, fol·
lowed by the first extensive use of paratroops in the Pacific.
To put a sizable force behind the Jap lines at Lae, it was
decided to capture the Markham valley site of Nadzab.
Detailed preparation was made and the jump was a model
of excellence. While Gen. MacArthur and Gen. Kenney
cruised about overhead. B·25s put the Nips under cover with
a strafing and parafrag attack. They were followed by A·20s
laying a smoke screen, behind which 96 C·47s shucked out
1,700 American paratroopers. Nadzab was ours and a week
and a half later Lae fell. As infantrymen crossed the air·
field , they found it a junkyard of shattered planes, souvenirs
of the Fifth's visits. The entire Huon gulf area was cleared
out a few days later with capture of Finschafen. It reo
duced the importance of Rabaul and established a protected
flank for future leaps to the west along the New Guinea
coast.
In the late fall of 1943, this was the picture throughout
the Pacific: in the north, the Japs had been driven out of
the Aleutians, back to the Kuriles; in the Central Pacific, the
Jap.held islands were taking occasional attacks; in the
Southwest Pacific, the key base of Rabaul, 0ne holding the
dual threats of slashing the supply route to Australia as well
as invading it, was itself threatened with isolation.
Rabaul still had air strength but it was maintained at ter·
rific cost as our planes blasted it with rising tempo. Its
harbor began to lose importance as the points to which
it shipped men and supplies began to fall into Allied hands.
The final blows which slapped such face as the Japs still had
at Rabaul were those which gave it the indignity of the
by·passed.
Tarawa and Makin were invaded on 20 November 1943.
The marines went ashore after seven days of intensive aerial
softening. The Marshall islands to the north were im·
mobilized by concurrent attacks. The invasion spelled the
end of reinforcements in strength for Rabaul, but more than
that, it set the fi r t pier for ou r bridge across the Central
Pacific.
The pattern of Pacific advance was one of taking the bases
we needed and by· passing the others. Those by·passed were
not forgotten, however. They were hit again and again and
again. And after they had lost all possibility of usefulness
to the enemy, they were made practice targets for new crews;
targets which still could put up some AA fire to season the
crews at minimum risk. To the end of the war, Rabaul
was getting a daily pounding although as a factor in imped.
ing the push to Tokyo it had faded completely after the
Tarawa landing doomed its reinforcements and subsequent
landings at Arawe and Cape Gloucester put it under land
threat from the west.
Truk now became the important base, with Palau like·
wise looming larger in the Japanese scheme of reinforce·
ment of forward areas. But those forward areas were soon to
be lost. American task forces ranged through the eastern
perimeter islands striking Mili, Jaluit, Kwajalein, Wotje and
Nauru, churning their runways into coral rubble, burning
their supplies. The same islands and others nearby were hit
in daily sorties by B·24s. By mid·December, fighters and
bombers were taking off from newly won Makin to strike
the Marshalls. Kwajalein was invaded in a brilliant mao
neuver which caught the Japs by surprise as we went through
to the northern part of the Marshalls, skipping the more
obvious southern invasion points. Throughout February,
airfields in the Marshalls were bombed into uselessness, and
our planes ranged westward to immobilize the staging areas.
Forty.two B·24s plastered Ponape in the Carolines on 14
February, and two days later a naval task force gave the
great naval and air center of Truk a thorough shellacking,
shoo ting down 127 aircraft and destroying 74 on the ground
while losing only 17 of its own planes. It was an action
timed to keep the Japs off balance while we invaded
Eniwetok, where troops went ashore on 17 February. All of
the Marshalls and Gilberts were under constant fighter and
bomber attack from that time, and as we gradually moved in
and captured the key islands, air pressure by the enemy was
kept at low level by destruction of planes and airfields both
in those islands and in the Carolines to the west. Four major
Jap islands were left to bake in the Pacific sun under an
umbrella of smoke raised by almost daily neutralizing at·
tacks. Mili, Jaluit, Maloelap and Wotje remained to the
end as practice targets, symbols of the fate of the by· passed.
While the Gilberts and Marshalls were being taken in
hand by the Navy, the ground forces and the Seventh Air
Force, the Thirteenth Air Force made a jump to the Ad·
miralty islands north of our Huon gulf holdings on New
Guinea. That made it a partner of the Seventh in blows on
the Carolines, with special attention being given to Truk.
These blows along the Central Pacific route to Japan were
falling while Gen. MacArthur moved his forces westward
along the north New Guinea coast. Infantrymen slugged
their way through inland valleys parallel to the coast, and as
they pressed the Japs back, amphibious operations put other
troops behind the Japs to effect a pincers. The Fifth Air
Force continued its systematic destruction of the Japanese
air force in New Guinea while blasting supp lies, defensive
installations and troops. In the last week of February 1944,
900 sorties were flown and 1,000 tons of bombs dropped on
the Wewak, Madang, Alexishafen and Hansa bay areas,
leading to the 5 March lanaing west of Saidor behind the
Jap lines. Hollandia was the major enemy base after Wewak
was shattered, with the Schouten islands and the Halmaheras
backing it up as rear bases. But Hollandia was soon to
share the fate of what in 1944 was the sorry lot of all Jap
forward bases. On 30 March, B·24s, P·38s and P·47s hit it.
The next day B·24s and P·38s gave it a final polish. The box
score: Japan, 219 planes destroyed or damaged; the U. S.,
one P·38 lost. Three days later a force of 303 B·24s, B·25s,
Continued on page 25
23
Balikpapan, once th e] 3th AF 's toughes t Borneo targe t • Inspection of 8alikpapan proved that FEAF's lon g neutral-
\Va pretty much a " milk run " by 1 Jul y wh en Aussies landed . ization campaign was successful. Below, Dutch oil engineers
Above. 5th AF Libs assist in th e prt.. -inva,; ion bomhardmcnt. assess damage at a bomb-bla ted crackin g in stallation . . .
Hoarded barge fuel, hidden along Borneo jungle water-
way near Bandjermasin, is located by 13th AF "snooper."
Bomb hits, strafing, scattered and fired hundreds of drums.
Continued from page 23
A-20s and P-38s pulverized the area and shot 26 planes out
of the sky. Hollandia was finished as an enemy bastion and
on 22 April a long jump was made to it by invasion forces.
The same day a precautionary firewall was built between it
and the by-passed areas by a landing at Aitape. Then in
turn came Wakde island on 17 May, Biak island on 27 May,
Noemfoor on 2 July and Cape Sansapor on 30 Jul y.
Western New Guinea was under control. The route now lay
north through the Halmaheras to the Philippines.
Thrust to the Marianas
With MacArthur poised on the western end of New Guinea
at the close of July, the Central Pacific forces under Ad-
miral Nimitz's command had swept into the Marianas and
likewise were set to move north or west. They reached the
Marianas in one tremendous thrust from the Marshalls, past
the Carolines, into Saipan on 15 June. This was accom-
plished on the familiar pattern of neutralization of all sur-
rounding bases. Daily strikes were made on Truk, Ponape,
Woleai, and Yap. The Peleliu airfield in the Palaus was the
target of five attacks in three days. While the Seventh and
Thirteenth Air Forces were neutralizing the Caro lines, car-
rier planes attacked Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and Guam in the
immediate invasion area. The fleet started shelling Sai pan
and Tinian two days before the landing. On D-Day, carrier
planes made sustained attacks on the enemy bases on Iwo,
Haha and Chichi islands. These attacks on bases from which
the invasion could be hampered were accompanied by a
oiversion in the north . The navy shelled Matsllwa island
Black thunderhead of oil smoke rises over storage tanks
at Boela, Ceram. A-20's silhouette shows against towering
column as plane comp letes job, heads for its Fifth AF base.
while Eleventh Air Force and Fleet Air Wing Four planes
bombed Paramushiru and Shimushu in the northern Kuriles.
As the battle for Saipan progressed, carrier planes continued
to sweep Guam, Rota, Pagan and I wo while the AAF con-
centrated on Truk, Woleai, Yap and Ponape. The by-passed
bases at Rabaul and in the Marshalls were attacked daily.
The threat in U. S. occupation of Saipan was obvious and
the Jap fleet came out of hiding. It was discovered west of
Guam, and our carriers attacked on 19 June. The ensuing
Battle of the Philippine Sea was another in the series of
naval engagements in which all of the con tact was from the
air and in which Japan's fleet was defeated. The enemy lost
428 planes, including those hit on the ground on Marianas
bases in accompanying side action. Jap sh ip losses were 17
sunk or damaged. The U. S. fleet lost 122 aircraft and 72
men. During almost the entire action, the American carrier
planes were striking at about the limit of their radius of
action, and most of our losses were due to forced landings
in the sea when the planes gave out of gas. The enemy's air
reaction to the Saipan landing was strong, but our air superi-
ority was never in serious jeopardy. From the opening of
the pre-invasion attacks on 11 June to a relatively stabilized
condition on 28 June, enemy plane losses in the Marianas
and to the west in the Philippine sea totaled more than 750_
On D plus 5, an engineer aviation battalion began un-
loading equipment and on D plus 6 began repairing the
runway at Aslito (renamed Ise ly) airfield. On D plus 7,
Seventh Air Force Thunderbolts, ferried from Hawaii by
CVE, Ian oed ano took off on missions against enemy ground
Continued on next page
25
 LONG TREK continued

forces. The engineers widened and lengthened the runway, Fourteenth against harbors and shipping along China coast.
then turned to construction of a heavy bomber stri p. They On 20 October, troops poured ashore at Leyte.
interrupted their work on the night of D plus 12 to wipe out Leyte was a dud from the beginning. As far as the air
300 Japs who had broken through and overrun the airfield, forces were concerned, it was mostly a case of mud. Tor-
but it was only a temporary halt. The Saipan operation was rential rains bogged us down everywhere. For the first time
typical of the speed with which aviation engineers prepared since we had struggled with the mud hole that became Hen-
new airfields: Isely field , started 21 June, operational for derson field, airfield construction was agonizingl y slow.
fighters 22 June, for Liberators 9 August, for B·29s 15 and it became apparent before lon g that our bomber strength
October; Kagman Point field, started 1 July, operational for could not be pulled into Leyte. Tacloban airstrip was the
fighters 20 Jul y; Kobler field, started 1 August, operational only strip that proved of real value. From it, the V Fighter
for heavy bombers 11 November. The engineers moved Command, its planes jammed wingtip to wingtip, for weeks
4,500,000 cubic yards of coral and earth, produced 127,322 did an all-around air force job, handling many tasks that
tons of asphaltic cement, paved 11 ,000,000 square feet of normally would have been given to the bombers. The latter.
surface and consumed more than 1,250,000 ga llons of diesel
fuel in their round·the·c1ock performance.
After Saipan came Guam on 21 July, followed by Tinian
on 23 Jul y. Again both invasions were preceded by heavy
air and naval bombardment, some of the help coming from
the land·based planes on Saipan. The islands were "secured"
by mid.August although isolated Japs were being picked off
months later.
Plane of the Air Transport Command followed almost in
the prop wash of combat planes as new ba es were taken.
Operations on the long overwater route steadil y increa ed,
with personnel flown from the United States to the Pacific
theater in nine months of 1945 totaling 80,847 as against
75,560 in all of 1944. Similarly, in 1945, through Septem·
ber, tonnage flown was 39,518 and in 1944 it was 28,86l.
Evacuation of casua lties to the U. S., a major factor in reo
ducing the death rate from wounds, total ed 36,000 in 1945
and 10,4,98 in 1944.
Meanwhile, preparations went forward for the lon g-antici-
pated drive back into the Philippines. On 15 September, the
Palau islands were invaded, the marines heading into tough
opposition on Peleliu, and army ground forces having a
somewhat easier time on Angaur. Thi placed the Central
Philippines within range of our heavy bombers. MacArthur
moved into Morotai, north of Halmahera, and the tage
was set for all forces to unite in a sing le plan.

Back to the Philippines

In no previous Pacific operation did the preparatory phase
cover such a vast area and involve so many different striking
elements. The leading role was played by a tremendous
carrier force of the Thi rd Fleet, which struck along a vast
arc from the Philippines to Marcus i land, the Ryukyus and
Formosa. In late September, they wrecked the Manila area,
destroying 357 aircraft, and the next day pounded Leyte,
Panay and Cebu. Then , in early October, they cut loose with
a series of terrific wallops: Marcus island on the 9th, the
Ryukyus on the 10th, Formosa on the 12th and 13th, and
Manila again on the 15th and 17th. Their score was 915
enemy planes destroyed, 128 ships sunk and 184 damaged.
They lost no ships and only 94 of their own planes. This
was essentially an operation to isolate the battlefield, to
make it difficult for the enemy to reinforce the Philippines.
Fitting into the same scheme were three attacks on Formosa
by China-based B-29s, constant attacks by the Fifth and
Thirteenth air forces on the sou thern Philippines and East
Indies flank, by the Seventh on the Bonins, and by the

26
Hying from Morotai, the Palaus, and bases on northwest
New Guinea, were forced by distance to carry lighter loads.
It had been expected that soon after invading Leyte they
would be operating in force against northern Luzon .
Leyte wa the closest we had come in a long time to
losin g a show. With the infantry and artillery slowly widen·
in g the beachhead perimeters and carrier aircraft the only
umbrella over them, the Japanese navy appeared. It came
in three sepa rate thrusts, although one from the north never
go t into the Leyte action becau se it was met and routed by
planes of the Third Fleet north of Luzon. The other two
force moved in from the west, threading their way through
the islands toward Ley te gulf, where the light and escort
carriers of the Seventh Fleet were protecting the invasion.
Although spotted as they moved in and attacked by sub-
marines, torpedo boats and planes, a strong Jap force
reached Leyte gulf and on the morning of 25 October began
shelling our carriers.
Despite the heavy ships the Japs had brought into the action
lhrou gh San Bernardino strait, the battle swung in our
favor and the enemy withdrew after suffering serious losses.
In this action the Japs 10 t a golden opportunity, which was
actually in their hands, to destroy our entire escort carrier
and tran sport Aeet in Leyte gu lf. Our carriers, destroyers
and destroyer escorts covered themselves with glory against
tremendous odds. Meanwhile to the south the old battleships
Continued on next page
27
 LOla TREK continued
of the Seventh Fleet, though short of ammunition, together
with a fleet of PT boats, destroyers and cruisers, decisively
defeated the enemy force which attempted to join the battle
through Surigao strait. The Jap bid to halt the Leyte invasion
had failed and their fleet had been reduced by sinkings and
damage to task-force size. Our losses were the carrier Prince-
ton, two escort carriers, two destroyers and one D.E.
During all the operations in September and October, it
was the carrier forces of the Third Fleet that dominated the
air action and deserved the major share of credit. On the
eve of the Battle for Leyte gulf, the Navy's vast Carrier Task
Force 38 had a complement of 1,082 planes, and its Task
Force 77, with the smaller carriers, could put some 600
planes into the air. The Far Eastern Air Forces (Fifth and
Thirteenth) had 1,457 planes assigned to tactical units and
5~4 held in ready reserve. The Seventh, in the Marianas,
Palaus and Marshalls, had another 526. While there were
more land-based aircraft, the mobility of the carriers enabled
the massing of great carrier striking strength at any re-
quired point. Truly, in these two months, carrier air, in
a war dominated by sea masses rather than land masses,
proved itself indispensable.
The end at Leyte came when the Japs discovered it was
just as difficult as back at New Guinea to reinforce a be-
sieged garrison. On 10 November, a Jap convoy bound for
Ormoc on Leyte's west coast was hit by B-25s in a masthead
attack which sank three transports and six escorts. The next
day Navy planes smashed another Ormoc-bound convoy.
On 7 December, Fifth Air Force fighter bombers sank all
vessels in a 13-ship convoy, and four days later destroyed
most of another, both near Ormoc.
Jap Air Debacle on Luzon
Throughout the Leyte campaign the Japs had dissipated
their air streT!gth in frequent, small attacks. Their op-
portunity was missed at the beginning when heavy, sustained
pressure might have turned the tide. When we made an
amphibious landing at Ormoc bay, followed on 15 December
by a landing on Mindoro, the Japs struck hard. But this time
it was too late. Once on the firm soil of Mindoro, the Fifth
Air Force was able to pull its main bomber strength up to
the Philippines. The Fifth now took up where the carriers
had left off. In three weeks, the remainder of the Japanese
air establishment in the Philippines was utterly demolished.
On 9 January, when MacArthur invaded the Lingayen gulf,
only two Japanese planes appeared over the beach. Never,
in the European war or previously in the Pacific war, had
such a crushing air defeat been administered. The Fifth Air
Force destroyed more than 2,000 enemy planes in the Philip.
pines. Yet the Japs had plenty more. Japanese aircraft
production reached its highest level at this very time. They
finally gave up sending more planes into the Philippines
because the organization to operate them had been wiped
out. The Fifth Air Force not only made every decent air·
field unserviceable, but also left every repair shop and
storage depot a shambles. The entire ground maintenance
system collapsed. When our forces reached Clark field,
they found a George fighter which needed only a carburetor
to fly. Dozens of carburetors, as well as engines, wheels and
hundreds of other parts, were found dispersed at nearby
Mahalaeat town in shacks, IInder bllildings, and even buried
28
in the fields. The George wasn't alone. Many planes were in
almost flyable condition.
From this overwhelming defeat, the Japanese high com-
mand, however reluctantly, could draw only one conclusion:
it wou ld be senseless, in the future, to continue using their
air force in the conventional manner. There was only one
course left: a Kamikaze, or suicide, air force.
For the balance of the Philippines campaign, the Fifth
Air Force was free to roam at will against the shipping
routes of the South China sea and to neutralize Formosa.
This meant the Fifth had taken over air commitments within
range of the Philippines, freeing the carriers for two major
tasks-Iwo and Okinawa.
Daylight attacks on Formosa started in January and soon
B-24s, B-25s, P-38s and P-5ls were making regular strikes
which at first were in preparation for and later in aid of the
Okinawa campaign. The B-24s also reached out across the
China sea to disrupt communications in Indo-China. B-25s
were a potent striking force against shipping with their
precision luw-Ievel attacks. In the Philippines, the Fifth
put on a whirlwind bombing and troop carrier show at
Corregidor, and, without air interferf.n ce, swept against
enemy troops wherever they still faced MacArthur. C:lt-
standing were missions in aid of guerrillas, and napalm fire
bomb attacks on Japs holed up in mountain caves.
The Thirteenth Air Force, meanwhile, had been protecting
the left rear flank as MacArthur turned north from New
Guinea. It policed the Netherlands East Indies and southern
Philippines, knocking out harbor installations, airfields,
oil facilities and shipping. Borneo, Java, Celebes, Ambon,
Ceram and lesser islands were scoured by planes of the
Thirteenth and the RAAF. Snoopers (single B-24s) picked
off shipping in Makassar strait. The oil center of Balikpapan
was put out of action in four major strikes in which Fifth
Air Force heavies joined. The East Indies thus were elim-
inated as a staging area for Philippines reinforcement and
were softened up for invasion.
Meanwhile, the Central Pacific forces forged their final
arch in the bridge needed to put fighters over Japan. To
the B-29s bombing Japan from the Marianas, Iwo had be-
come increasingly annoying. To convert this warning sta-
tion and interception point into a haven for distressed B-29s
and a forward base for fighter sweeps over Japan, it was
invaded on 19 February. Hardly had the bloody struggle
for Iwo ended when Okinawa was invaded. Coming so soon
after Iwo and at the very doorstep of the Home Islands, the
invasion of Okinawa was a show of power that jolted the
American public into the realization that the war against
Japan might be approaching the final phase.
The Kamikaze Onslaught
This time the preparation included sustained strikes at
Japan itself. The February blows in the Tokyo-Yokohama
area prior to the Iwo landing were dwarfed by those which
preceded the Okinawa invasion. The Fifth Fleet on 18 and
19 March disposed of most of what remained of the Jap fleet
and destroyed 475 enemy aircraft as its planes struck at air-
fields and anchorages in southern Honshu and Kyushu. From
23 to 29 March it made daily attacks on Okinawa and on
seuthern Kyushu to disrupt reinforcements and supply. The
Fifth Air Force intensified its attacks on Formosa and was
The men and their tools on Ie. P-47 spans final gap to Japan from runway shaped by bulldozers, engineers.

joined by British carriers in strikes on airfields and trans·

portation facilities. Jap airfield s on the east China coast
were neutralized by the Fourteenth.
Okinawa was invaded on 1 April and, after a few days of
easy going, our ground forces ran into Japanese resistance
that remained fanatical to the end. Japan's air force ap'
peared in its new trappings, and the Navy went through hell.
At Leyte, where the Japs first tried suicide tactics on more
than an individual scale, they were a menace, but not a
critical one. Now, at Okinawa, the Japs came up with a pre·
dominantly suicide air force and the threat was critical in
the extreme. The U. S. fleet and ships off Okinawa, were a
made·to·order target for Kamikaze attack. The Japs did not
repeat the piecemeal mistake of Leyte.
On 6 April, date of the first intensive attack, the Navy was
knocking down the Kamikazes without a moment's respite
from dawn to dusk. Major assaults were made five times
during the month and on the other days there were attacks
at frequent intervals. The fleet's air patrol intercepted most
of the Kamikazes but a large number inevitably got through
to the outer screening ring of destroyers. A few pierced
the defenses and reached the major fleet units. Proximity
fuses, which detonated the ships' antiaircraft shells even
though direct hits were not made on the enemy planes, in·
creased the toll of suiciders, but damage to surface craft
continued to mount. In the 81 days of the Okinawa cam·
paign 32 ships were sunk and 216 damaged by aircraft.
Destroyers, destroyer escorts, minesweepers and smaller
craft were the heaviest losers. Nine destroyers and one de· Final signpost, totem pole style, is erected at Ie, tells the
stroyer escort were sunk; 68 destroyers and 24 destroyer good news that the men haven't much farther to go.
Continued on next page
29
LONG TREK continued
escorts damaged. Two ammunition ships were blown up in
one attack. None of the major Aeet units were sunk although
many were severely damaged and lost for the campaign.
The Kamikazes used both new and obsolete planes and
introduced the Baka-a pi loted bomb-with-wings-carried
to the scene by a bomber and then released for its short and
only Aight. As the Aeet stayed ofT Okinawa, shelling enemy
positions and aiding the troops with carrier aircraft strikes,
the menace of the suicide attacks grew. To lessen this,
the airfields from which the Kamikazes Aew were brought
under sustained attack. Both the Amami group and the
Sakishima group of islands, north and south of Okinawa
respectively, were attacked daily by American and British
carrier planes. Task Force 58, which had been giving its
major attention to th e Japs on Okinawa, with a side ex-
cursion on 7 April to sink the battleship Yamato and five
other warships which apparently were moving out on a hit-
run mission to Okinawa, initiated the u tained program to
put Kamikaze bases out of co mmis ion. The carrier planes
on 15 April strafed, bombed and rocketed airfields on Kyu-
shu. The next day car rier planes, Marine Corps medium
bombers and army fi ghter from Iwo worked over the arne
area. Then on 17 April B-29s entered the picture. Five times
in six da ys the Superforts dropped their heavy loads on
Kyushu airfields, then after a three-day lapse, closed out the
month with five consecutive da ys of attack. Through the
early part of May the B-29s continued these blows, striking
seven times in the first 11 days. Carriers picked up where
they left ofT and gave Kyu shu a three-day dusting. By late
May, P-47s joined the attacks, Aying from the small i land
of Ie Shima near Okinawa. The e operation, combined with
Northern Japan blazed too. Here Third Fleet carrier planes work over the town oj Nemura on Hokkaido.
increasing success of our troops on Okinawa, graduall y
whittled down the scale of enemy attacks. In the first month
of the invasion , 1,700 Jap planes were involved in ordinary
or su icide attacks; in May the total dropped to 700 and in
June it was less than 300. Ou r ground successes were a
greater factor in this reduction than the breaking up of
Kyushu airfields, for with the island definitely fallin g to us,
the Japs withheld the bulk of their planes for a last-ditch
defense of the Home Islands.
Long before Okinawa was wholly won , we began to carve
out a network of bases which was to hold the invasion air
force. As the Japs were compre sed into the southern part
of the island , fields began to blossom profusely over the
cen tral parts. As the bases took shape, they began to fill
with planes and daily strikes were made on Kyushu , paralyz-
ing trans portation , airfields, and cities. The final softening
up for invasion in November was under way. Throughout
July the tempo increased and by early August, despite un-
favorable weather, between 350 and 450 sorties were being
Aown dail y. This wa sca rce ly a sa mple of what was in
tore, for from 23 ba es on Ie and Okinawa, the re-deployed,
B-29-equipped Eighth Air Force was to join Gen. Kenney's
hu ge tactical air for ce in smoo thin g the invasion path. Even
as th e war ended the Navy was basing 625 planes on Oki-
nawa, 32 B-29s had arrived and 1,317 planes of the tactical
air for ce were read y to go .
It wa an ironical twi st of fate for Kenney, who had done
so much with so little, particularly in the early days, finally
to get a for ce of really great size just when it was no longer
needed. For without a landing in Japan to put the final span
of the Pacific bridge in place, the lon g trek ended.
Here, at last, is the end of th e lon g trek for the Fifth's ... The refinel'Y, at Koyagi Shima, off the Japan ese mainland,
B-25s-attack on Japan itselL Above, camera has caught has erupted into a mass of Aames and bursting bombs as the
one Mitchell a moment after bombs away on an oil refinery_ B-25 pull away. Attack was made early in August . ...

ASIA FLANK
lOth and 14th Buled the Air in Burma and China
America's aerial effort in Asia was lon g an undernourished
child. forced by circumstances to fend for itself ; to im·
provise an d, at first. to cling to its s lender thread of life
by whatever means it cou ld. It developed into an un·
orthodox, vigorous air force. Its main achievements in
Burma were in makin g it po sible for A llied troops to exist
in the jung le by suppl yin g. evacuating and tran spo rtin g
them on an unprecedented sca le and in making the Japanese
po ition untenabl e, literall y through starvation , by destruc·
tion of th eir suppl y bases which disappea red in a welter of
bombed bridges, river boats, railroad trackage and freight
junctions. In China it achieved command of the skies over
Chinese troo ps, and tore ga pin g hol es in the enemy supply
routes on la nd and sea. Between India and China it flew the
Hump in th e g reatest sustained transportation achieve·
ment of th e war. And it did all this in weather which for
more than half each year was so bad one pilot was moved
to remark, " Fl yin g, hell! This is an amphibious operation;
we need gill more than wings."
The aerial infant from which this grew was born by
Tenth Air Force activation 12 February 1942. Before that,
American air power in Asia consisted exclusively of the
American Volunteer Group. Claire L. Chennault, master
tactician for China's air force had obtained 100 obsolescent
P·40s. and 100 American pilots to man them. and some 200
g round perso nn el to keep them in the air. When this group
of Fl ying Ti ge rs met their first Jap over Ran goon on 20
December 1941, they were a single bri ght li ght in an other·
wise di mal sky. China was iso lated except for the Burma
road and Hong Kon g, with the latter about to fall. Japanese
forces were firmly entrenched in French Indo·China, had
moved throu gh Thailand , had swung one spearhead down
the Malay peninsula and another into South Burma. Ran goon
fell on 10 March, then came the " walk·out" of a motley
array of British, Indian and Chinese troops led by Gen. Sir
Harold Alexander and Gen. Joseph W. ("We·took·a·hell ·of.
a·beating") Stilwell. By May most of Burma was gone, the
Kyundon, on Jap suppl y route in central Burma, blazes
durin g interdiction attack by 10th AF B·25s, one of who e
shadows is shown passinO" over the five pagodas at lower left
Part 3
Burma road cut and China isolated . Western prestige had
hit a new low in the Orient.
During this period of unre lieved Allied military dis·
aster, the AVG and a handful of RAF planes performed bril·
liantly in local engagement , but could do no more than
impede the enemy advance. Bases were bombed out by the
Japs and the Fl ying Tigers were pressed back into China.
Always outnumbered, and fl ying relatively slow aircraft, the
AVG nevertheless hung up a phenomenal record during the
seven months of its operational life: 298 enemy planes de·
stroyed in combat for a loss of 12. This proved the sound·
ness of Chennault's precepts, which were to fl y in pairs,
take one swipe at the enemy and get gone. It also punctured
the ba lloon of invincibility growin g up around the speedy,
highl y maneuverable Zero, and proved that ruggedness,
speed in dives, and fire power could be made to beat an
enemy who, although a fancy dog·fighter, was not so rugged.
The Tenth Air Force got a handful of planes in March ,
1942. It had the B·17 and the LB· 30 (earl y B·24) with which
Maj. Gen . Lewis H. Brereton and his party had flown from
the Netherlands East Indies. It added six B·17s and ten
PAOs which had been scheduled for Java but which were
diverted. With this tiny force it expected daily to have to
help repel an invasion of India. But by May, 1942, this no
lon ge r appeared imminent so the primary mission of air in
Asia then shifted from defense of India to aid to China. This
meant ferr ying operations over the Himalaya mountains-
th e famed Hump route. A few planes from China National
Airwa ys and so me DC-3s obtained via Africa and flown
by commercial airline pilots started the operations. The first
transport assignment was delivery of 30,000 gallons of
gaso line and 500 gallons of oil , intended for Doolittle's 18
April raiders. By August 1942 they had become the India·
China Ferry Command, and on 1 December the Air Trans·
port Command took over.
On the first anniversary of war, ATC had only 29 trans·
port planes to fu el and supply the war in China. In all
India the Tenth had only 16 heavy bombers, 15 mediums and
50 fighters operational. U. S. planes in China that day
totaled 10 mediums and 50 fighters. These pathetic num·
bers were due partly to a diversion of reinforcements, partly
to an actual withdrawal of planes to the Middle East, both in
Continued on page 35
33
 ASIA FLAIK ('0111;" lied

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

Maintenance can't wait: neither will Burma rain. Ground Elmer the Elephant load C-46 for Hump Haul , can do
crews rig tarp for overhaul of B-25 at forward airfield. work of more than dozen natives in handlin g drums of fu el.
34
Beneath this C-46 is the Hump, whose rocky peaks and ice-filled clouds were conquered for supply of China.
Continued from page 33
an effort to repel Rommel 's drive on Egypt. The Tenth lost all of its IN 0 I A
heavy bombers in thi s way and had none at all for some time. ATC grew
the fastest. At first it ca rried gaso lin e, oil, and replacement parts to
China·based aircraft. Grad uall y it started carryin g heav y equipment.
By Octobe r 1943 a schedu Ie of night fli ghts over the storm y barrier
peaks was added. By 1 August 1945 ATC was able to tall y up a month's
de livery of 71.000 tons- over four times the ca pacity of the o ld Burma
road- and it had tepped that up to a rate of more than 85,000 ton s
monthl y in the final da ys of th e war. Before it could begin to ex pand ,
howeve r, it had to have bases. It had to get its own supplies, as well as
those it was trans porting to China, from harbors to the take·off point via
air or in adeq uate rail, highwa y, and river transportation. Its planes in
late sp rin g, summer, and early fall fl ew in monsoon weather of rain,
hail , wind, and turbulence. In winter they flew throu gh ice-laden clouds,
piled high above th e 18,000·foot Himalayan peaks. But they flew in
ever-in crea ing numbers.
The AVG was absorbed into the Tenth Air Force on 4 July 1942 and
redesignated the China Ai r Task Force. Chennau It, recall ed to active
duty as a brigadier general , was nfl.med its commander. In March 1943 Long supply lines were vulnerable to interdiction.
the Chin a Air Task Force became the independent U . S. Fourteenth. Note only a road connects Lashio and Lampang.
Continued on page 37 35
 Air drops such as this, watched by Britishers, kept more than 350,000 troops in action in Burma in 1945.

Eight thousand feet in the air on a nylon line, glider of Broken bridges spell ed starvation throughout Burma
1st Air Commandos puts Wingate troops behind enemy lines. jungles for Japs. Dive·bombin g B·24s of 10th AF did this.

36
These are the airfield builders. Throughout China, as here at Hsintsin, the coolies supplied the power.
Continued from page 35
Meanwhile, two British land campaigns were set in motion
in Burma to combat the growing Japanese forces there which
were threatening to drive across the Indian border and cut
off the ATC bases now being bui lt in Northeast India. Both
these ground operations were on a limited scale. On the
central front, Britain's Gen. Orde Charles Wingate infil·
trated a brigade of jungle troops through the Japanese and
f or three months harried the rear areas whi le depending
wholly on air supply. Farther south, in the Arakan, the
British engaged in an orthodox, unsuccessful campaign.
Basing its decision on the experience of these two opera·
tions, the Quebec conference in August 1943 approved plans
for a determined drive the following year-a drive which
was to utilize the lessons of 1943, and profit from a unified
command, coordinating efforts of the Tenth Air Force and
the RAF Benga l Air Command under the Eastern Air Com-
mand , commanded by Maj. Gen. George Stratemeyer. As
the India forces were depleted in 1942 to support the Middle
East, they were reinforced from the Middle East once the
African campaign was won. The 7th Bomb Group (H) was
the one which was called out of India and it was sent back.
The 12th Bomb Group (M), whose B-25s had fought across
orth Africa, also was assigned to the Tenth Air Force.
The push began in late 1943 with a limited British-Indian
offensive into the Arakan. A it moved ahead, Japanese
infiltration units struck the rear lines and cut communica-
tions. But unlike the previous year, the troops now were
supplied by aerial drops from planes of Brig. Gen. William
D. Old's Troop Carrier Command. They held, strengthened,
and broke out of the trap.
Northward on the central front, a similar situation de-
ve loped. Two British-Indian columns, moving out of
Imphal, had been hit on the north and the south flanks by
a major Japanese drive. The enemy pressed on, entrapping
the British on the Imphal plain, and posing a critical threat
to the Assam-Bengal railway over which supplies were
moved to Chinese-American forces building the Ledo road.
For the second time Gen. Old's Troop Carrier Command
carne to the rescue. The 5th Indian Division, with all its
mountain batteries and mules, was lifted into the Imphal
area in 60 hours. Two brigade groups were flown to Kohima.
Two hospitals and thousands of wounded and non-essential
personnel were flown out. And, most important of all, food
and ammunition were flown in.
The result was inevitable. The British troops had a
ecure air supply route while the Japanese had a land sup-
ply route which was under constant harrassment by combat
planes. The threat to India was ended and these operations
became the pattern for the ensuing campaign for all Burma.
Japan's forces in Burma were supplied by a long, slender
Continued on page 39
37
 14th AF P·38 cuts loose with a fire bomb (below tail) against 1,100.joot bridge at Wan Lai·kam in Burma.

Under attack by 14th AF B-25s, 9,000-foot Yellow river Note AA tower near bottom, left. Bridge was repeatedly
bridge takes misses (left ), near misses (center) , hits (right). struck. Flimsy Jap repair job once put locomotive in river.

38
Continued from page 37
rail-hi ghway-river system, with on Iy a few lines running
north and south. The interdiction campaign in Burma was
based on the fact that with Rangoon and other south Burma
ports under sustained air attack, the enemy was forced to
use Ban gkok as his prin cipal port. This meant carrying
supplies on an additional stretch of ri ckety railroad running
through mil es of coastal country before they could be moved
north. There were hundreds of brid ges on this line. The
solution, then, to denial of supplies to the enemy was to
kn ock out the bridges and railroad trackage. This was done
with regularity. The Japs we re skillful at repair but our
aircraft we re abl e to keep ahead of the repair crews. Radio-
guided bombs were used with excell ent results, and B-24s
~ve n wo rked out a 25-d egree di ve angle technique which
in creased accuracy. Th e Jap suppl y probl em became critical ,
and troo p a t the north end of th e lin e eventuall y became
starved and disease-ridden. These were the troo ps fa cin g
Gen. Stilwell 's Chinese-Ameri can f orces who were workin g
their way a head of the enginee rs building the Ledo road.
Air sup ply was vital to Stil well 's dri ve. A picked group
of 3,000 vo lunteers-Merrill 's Ma rauders-followin g the
technique of Gen. Wingate, struck off into the jungle as an
advance s pearhead probin g toward Myitkyina. From 23
Feb ruar y until 17 Ma y-when Myitk yina airfield was taken
- the Marauders were entirely supplied by air. Nearl y
8,000 Chin ese troops were fl own over the Hump from Yun-
nanyi, China, in on e o peration, as front-line reinforcements
for Stilwell ' forces. By th e end of October, 1944, 75,527
personnel had been flown into North Burma, 7,693 had
been shifted within the area, and 28,181 had been flown out.
In yet a nother 1944 opera ti on a n a rm y was abl e to make a
deliberate choice of entrapment through reliance on air.
The Fir t Air Commando Group under Col. Phi lip G.
Cochran was organized to put Gen. Win gate's troops inside
Burma between Myi tk yin a and Katha, to suppl y them, to
evacua te the casua lties, a nd to swee p in front of the columns
with bombers and fi ghters. The obj ective of Wingate's
men was to cut suppl y Jines in the rear of Japanese troops
opposing Stil we ll a nd Merrill.
March 5 was D-Day fo r Wingate and Cochran. Take-off
time was set to put the glid ers, with their cargoes of troops,
airborne engin eers, bulldozers and mules, over th e secret
jungle clearings of " Broad way" a nd " Piccadill y" ju t after
dusk. So secret was th e ope ration, that th e cl earings were
not reco nn oitered for fear the Japan ese would divine the
intention and obstru ct them. But, on a hunch, Col. Cochran
sent a photo reconnaissance plane out the afternoon of
D-Day. Its wet prints were handed to him 15 minutes before
take-off a nd he found that Pi ccadill y was a death trap .
The Ja ps had covered it with logs.
Pl an were chan ged swiftl y to put the force down on
Broad way a lone and , with a postponement of onl y 30
minutes, the first wave of 26 transports, each to wing two
gliders, headed east. A seco nd wave was dispatched, but all
planes except one we re ca ll ed back because the landin g field
had become littered with g liders that had smashed up in
landing due to overloadin g. Of the 54 gliders in the first
wave, 17 did not reach Piccadill y because to w lines snapped.
Des pite the losses and confusion , 539 personnel, three
mules and 29,972 pounds of supplies and equipment were
landed that first night. Airborne enginee rs went to work
and by the next afternoon Broadwa y was read y for C-47s.
Complete surpri e had been achieved. A second field
was set up the night after the first. Men and supplies poured
in. By D plus 6, the total was 9,052 men, 175 ponies, 1,183
mules and 509,083 pounds of stores. During the entire
o peration our bombers and fi ghters were masters of the air
ove r Wingate's troops.
More troops and supplies were ferried to the fightin g area.
Light planes landed beside the advancing columns on hastily
sc ratched-out clearings, to pick up casualties. The exact
statistics on the "grasshoppers" will never be available be-
cause the commandos took literally General Arnold's in-
junction: " To hell with paper work; go out and fi ght." A
reasonable guess is that they fl ew more than 8,000 sorties.
When the XX Bomber Command's B-29s ended operations
in China in late 1944, th ey turned their heavy loads loose in
aid mf the Burma campaign while awaiting a final shift to the
Ma rianas. Sin gapore and Pal embang were hit but blows
against Rangoon and Bangkok were their principal assign-
ments. In their first maximum-load attack each plane
dropped 40 500-lb. bombs, wiping out a Rangoon rail yard.
While the North Burma forces were advancing, British-
Indian troops which had withstood the Jap attack at Imphal
al so took the offensive. Their advan ce was speeded by air
lea ps to airheads (airfields captured or built to keep suppl y
bases near the advan cin g front ) . When on 8 March 1945
Mandalay and Lashio fell , the route to China was clear.
Ran goon remain ed. By 1945, it was almost useless to
Japan, but not until it was in Allied hands would the Burma
campaign be ended. The British, with air lashing out in
front of them, continued southward. Lt. Gen. Sir William
Slim, commanding the troops, radioed the 12th Bomb
Group: " You have been a po we rful factor in helping us give
the littl e bastards a thorou gh thrashing."
By March, 1945, the southward-moving troop.3 in Burma
wholl y dependent on air suppl y totaled 356,000. With the
monsoon season near, it was decided to bridge the distance
to Rangoon by a seaborne invasion aided by the whole
weight of Allied aircraft. On 1 May, Gurkha paratroopers
jumped from C-47s, swept meagre resistance aside, and the
next day the seaborne troops piled ashore to find Rangoon
abandoned. The Burma campaign was over.
All this time the Fourteenth Air Force, which eventually
included the Chin ese-American Composite Wing, made up
of U.S.-trained Chinese and AAF airmen, was ranging over
China, assisted by a reporting net of thousands of Chinese.
Initiall y it operated from bases prepared or planned before
America's entry into the war. It gradually acquired new
bases until finall y there were 63 which the coolies had
laboriously fashioned. Because of them, Gen. Chennault was
abl e to shift his forces when enemy air or ground opposition
became too threatenin g-as it often did- and employ them
without delay against new targets.
Greatest of the bases was Chengtu. Its nine fields were
built in 1944 in nine months by a peak of 365,000 workers
who moved two million cubic yards of earth and laid two
and a quarter million cubic yards of paving at a total cost
of nine billion Chinese dollars. This was the B-29 forward
stagin g base from which the first attack was launched
on Japan . It al so was the springboard for attacks on North
China, Manchuria, and Formosa.
Continued on page 41
39
 Straight line in pattern of rice fields is broken by 14th AF hit on rail line between Yochow and Changsha.

At Siaokichen, interior China, Chinese-American Wing River grave is du g for junk and its cargo at Haiphong,
planes lay down bull 's-eye bomb pattern to blot out rail yard. French Indo-China, by China-based 14th Air Force raider.

40
 Gen. Chennault's Aiers had no connection with the B·29s
other than defense of the bases. Their main duties were:
protection of the Hump, close cooperation with China's
. armies. and attacks on shipping and rail communications.
The Fourteenth made up for its tiny size by reliance on
deception, at which Chennault was a past master. He knew
the capabilities, numbers and speeds of the enemy and by
the judicious employment of feints and bluffs, he used this
knowledge to insure that he met the enemy where and when
he wanted. Thus. even in the early days when he was greatly
outnumbered. he often managed to have local air superiority
and almost always managed to be on top of the enemy so
that the high divin g speed of his P-40s would count. In one
case, late in ]942. Chennault saw to it that Japanese agents
got wind of an impending strike from a forward base against
Hong Kong. The mission got under way on schedule; the
Jap got set to defend Hong Kong. At the last minute, the
U. S. force of eight bombers and 22 fighters, after appar-
ently being on the way past Canton to Hong Kong, swung
sharply into Canton and caught the off-balance Jap de·
fenders coming up below them. Result : 22-23 Nip planes
destroyed in the air and more on the ground; no American
p lanes lost.
Gen. Chennault's bombers ranged over the South and East
China seas in quest of Jap shipping. Staging at East China
hases for thei r missions, until these bases were lost early in
1945, they utilized to the fullest low-altitude radar bombing
for night and low-ceilin g attacks. They became the scourge
of ships following the coast, gradually forcing them farther
out where they beca me prey to U. S. submarines.
One of the Fourteenth's most heart-breaking tasks was aid
10 China's armies. Th e Japanese always had enough-more
than enough- land power to go where they would against
the ·tubbornl y contesting but ill-equipped Chinese. The
Fourteenth co uld. and did, impede the advances and make
them costly. It could do little more, but in the final analysis
that was enough . Japan's unwillingness to pay the price
always saved China.
The first direct air aid to troops was in the late spring of
1943 when the enemy launched a limited offensive south and
southwest of the Yangtze river in the Tungting lake area.
Only a few planes were available. About all that could be
placed on the credit side of the ledger was experience for
the pilots and bol stered morale for the overpowered Chinese.
Later in 1943. seven Jap divisions struck at Changteh.
>'outheast of Tun gtin g lake. Thi ' time they met stiffer ground
resistance, heavier air attack from a stronger Fourteenth
Air Force. The Japanese had sufficient power to move ahead
hut they were looking for a cheap victory and this was
not the p lace. They withd rew.
The high tide of the Japanese advance in China came in
1944. Between May and the end of the year the invaders,
driving west from Canton and southwest toward Indo-China,
severed Ea t China from West China with consequent isola·
tion of East China air bases, captured the air bases at
Hengyang, Lin gling, K wei lin, Liuchow and Nanning, a.nd
established a continuous line of communication from French
Indo·China to North China. In early 1945 the Japanese
:eized all of the north·sou th rail line from Hankow to
Canton . then pushed eastward and took the Fourteenth's East
China airfit'ld" al SlIichwan and Kanchow . Loss of territory
was nothing new to the Chinese; they had been giving
ground since 1937. But evacuation and demolition of the
laboriously constructed airfields and the necessary destruc-
tion of precious supplie was a bitter blow to them as well as
to the Fourteenth.
Although Chennault's men were driven from one base to
another, operations again t rail lines and freight yards,
supply depots, airfields, moving troops and river shipping
were carried on remorse les Iy. Throughout this period, as
earlier, the incredibly vast Chinese information net was
inva luable. When river craft assembled- and river ship-
ping was an integral part of the transportation system-the
Fourteenth was advised. It total tally of 24,299 miscella-
neous river craft claimed sunk or damaged was the result. So
effective were its rail attacks that Japan cou ld neither fully
use the lines she had nor extend lines which would have
exploited the Indo-China link. From the days of the A VG,
qualitative superiority in the air was always on the side of
China. The 2,353 Jap aircraft destroyed and the 780 prob-
ably destroyed in China were never replaced in sufficient
numbers to overcome the more effective fighter pilots,
bomber crews, tactics and planes of the United States.
So complete was aerial mastery that Japan dared not at-
tack by day and its last inland night bombing was against
Kunming in December 1944. By April 1945, all air attacks
against American or Chinese installations had ended and
the Japanese air force in China was an all but forgotten foe.
When Jap reverses in Southwest China and in North
Burma finally led to re-opening of the land route to China
in the early spring of 1945, one of the tasks which had been
set before our air power in Asia in 1942 had been accom-
plished. But the picture was no longer the same. ATC was
Aying into China a greater tonnage than the road could
ever carry and the triumphant Pacific forces of the United
States were pounding Japan from island and carrier bases.
Japan, now, began to withdraw her forces from their points
of deep penetration. As they moved back, they were pushed
by the revitalized Chinese and hit by everything which could
be thrown at them from the air. However, it was a planned
withdrawal. Japan was through as an occupant of interior
China. Her position in the war had deteriorated to a point
where the occupation brought diminishing returns.
The Japanese warlords' proud plans for Asia had been
crushed when air power and land power were linked to turn
back the thrust toward India and to re-open the Burma road.
Their hope of substituting a land route for the effectively
shattered sea route to the riches of the south faded when the
Fourteenth blasted their highways, railroads and river craft
into uselessness. The value of China as a granary for them
lessened as their cargo carriers, in ever increasing numbers,
splintered from bombs and bullets. They were opposed by
armies strengthened by airborne equipment and supplies.
And, finally , having lost the air, their own armies were wide
open to the most-feared fate of any ground force--constant.
unchallenged attack by the opposing air force.
So the Japanese withdrew, moving north under pressure
of ground and air forces. And the Fourteenth in the final
days of war, shifted its attack to the targets far to the north
which stood before the Soviet armie ; targets on a roan to
Tokyo that never was needed.
41

BLOCKADE
Subs, Airplanes, Mi,.es Strangled the Homela,.d
The blockade of Japan was, from the beginning of th e
war. one of the main ob jectives of American air and sea
power. It was postulated on a set of co nditions which were
believed to make J apa n at leas t as vulnerable to blockade
as any grea t power in mod ern histor y. Fi rst, she was sur·
rounded by water. Second, she had a hu ge population, and
depended on ex tra·territorial so urces for at least 20 per cent
of her food. Her nutritional standards were so low
a lread y that denial of this 20 per cent was expected to reo
suit in privation for a large part of the population. Third.
much of her manufacturing potential was in the home
islands. whereas most of th e raw materials which her in·
dustries consumed were not. For exa mpl e. 90 per cent
of all oil came from overseas. 88 per cen t of all iron and
24 per cen t of a ll coa l. Fourth , the bulk of her domestic
coa l suppl y was in K yushu and Hokkaido, with the result
that 57 per cen t of all coa l was water·borne at so me point
between mine and factory. Fifth. terrain and th e com·
paratively poor development of the Japan ese rail system
made her ve ry dependent. even for domestic transpo rt. on
coastal vessels.
In short. Japan had to have a large and active merchant
neet if she expected to exist as an effective combatant. This
neet reached its maximum size in 1942. It co nsisted of
about 5,000 vessels of over 100 tons each. and had a total
gross weight of 7,500,000 ton. (No ca lculation has been
made of the small coas tal vesse ls. river boats and sampans
of under 100 ton s gross weight. which swa rm in Japan as
thickl y as fl eas on a Mexican mon grel. ) Because bf the
rapid expansio n of Jap military activity to the so uth in the
ea rly days of the war, this Aeet was strained to the utmost.
and attacks by American submarines and aircraft were felt
immediately. The Fifth Air Force ravaged shipping lanes to
the south. introducing, in th e all ·important Battle of the
Bismarck sea. low ·leve l skip bombing by its B·25s. This
was a g rowin g sco urge until the end of th e war. In th e
Sou thwest Pacific. the Thirteenth Air Force developed a
highl y successful lon g. ran ge snooper technique for its B·24s.
Jap sailors flounder in water after their fri gate goes down
off Indo·China coas t 30 miles below Amoy. sunk by B·25s
of the Fifth Air Forces' famed 345th "Ai r Apache" Group.
Part 4
The Fourteenth co ncentrated on river shipping and vessels
travelin g along th e China coas t. achieving notable success
with a method for making low·level night strikes by radar.
Carrier·based Navy planes sank ships everywhere. But the
rea l vampire on Japan 's jugular vein proved to be the sub·
marine. Day in and day out it chewed it way through more
than 100,000 tons a month with relentl ess regularit y. The
effects of these attacks were manifold. They led to a general
weakening of the Jap effort on the various southern and
island fronts, and eventuall y dictated a squatter policy in
these places rather than one of aggres ive military develop·
ment. In addition to thi s they so res tricted the delivery of
raw material s to Japan that an increasing number of manu·
facturing plants wa left idle. Finally, U. S. submarine
depredations caused a virtual abandonment by cargo vessels
of the great east· coast Japan ese ports of Tokyo, Yokohama
and Nagoya . Thi s was more important than it sounds. It
meant that a va t amount of hipping was now being fun ·
ne led into a few places: the Shimonoseki strait, whence it
co uld proceed in sa fet y up throu gh the Inland sea ; and a
handful of small er ports on Japan 's west coast, from which
ca rgoes were transpo rted to the manufacturin g centers by
rail. The first half of the job wa now done. The aerial
half remained. If we could clog up Shimonoseki and these
west· coast ports with mines, Japan wou ld a lmost certainly
crumble rapidly as an organized indu strial society.
It was not until the s pring of 1945 that development of
air bases within ran ge of Japan had proceeded to a point
where a minin g campaign could be undertaken on the huge
scale believed necessa ry for success . By that time Japan's
merchant marine was down to about 2,500,000 tons. She
had been comp letely unable to replace losses, and as the
pace in which her remainin g hips cou ld operate became
more and more constricted, the airplane became an increas·
ingly terribl e menace. In January 1945, aircraft accounted
for more than doubl e the number of ships sunk by subs.
The first minin g mi ~ s i on was Aown on 27 March by B·29s
which sowed 900 min es in th e approaches to Shimonoseki
strait, Japan's greatest bottleneck, and by that time. han·
dling 40 per cent of all marine traffic. In the next four
months over 12,000 mines were laid, completing the largest
blockade in hi story. one that literall y strangled Japan.
43
 NAVAL
VESSELS
~ 98
SHIPS AFLOAT

~ 472 ~ ........ ~~

~::-"I
SHIPS SUNK

~.
~~~~
~~'-~
~~

stroyers and submarin es are in a similar state.

THE END OF JAP SEA POWER The damage wa low in starting. Save for a few de·
stroyers and one carrier th ere were no losses for six months.
Here are the final result of the most decisive anti-marine Then came three resounding defeats: the Battle of Midway
effort on record, an effort which virtually erased the world's in June 1942, where four ca rriers and a heavy cruiser were
third largest navy, and so weakened the world's third largest cratched in 24 hours; the bitter struggle for the Solomons
merchant Al(et that it was totall y inadequate at the end of in October and ovember 1942, resulting in the loss of two
the war to take care of more than a fraction of the needs battleships, three cruisers and 12 destroyer; and finally the
of its country's industry and its country's people. great sea battle of the Philippines in October 1944. which
The Jap navy is in an even sorrier condition than the t;os t Japan three batt leships, four carriers, ten cruisers and
drawing above shows. The one battleship aAoat is badly eight destroyers, all in four days. Otherwise, Japan hoarded
damaged. So are two of the four carriers. Two cruisers are her major fleet units and let the li ghter ones do the work .
damaged, the other two decommissioned . Many of the de- These were consumed at an enormous rate. 32 destroyers
go ing down in the waters arOllnd New Guinea. th e Solomons
CARGO
VESSELS
-- ----------~--~--------
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--------------------------
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1897 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .._. _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ .....,., ............ - - - - - -
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SHIPS SUNK - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ...... _ _ _ _ _ - - - - - - - -

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OVER 1000 TONS
2300
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--------------------------
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and the Bismarck archipelago in 1943 alone. struction capture and salvage, the Japs finished the year
[n addition to the principal naval types Ii ted above, the 1942 with the same- ized merchant fleet (5,950,000 tons)
following were sunk up through 1 June 1945: three sea· that she started with, despite a total los of 1,060,384 tons
plane carriers, two training cruisers, 93 escort ves els, 80 during the period. In 1943, she lost 1,871,510 tons; in 1944,
sub chaser, 21 minelayers, 29 minesweepers, 42 combat 3,990,744; and in the first seven and a half months of 1945
tran ports, 19 coastal patrol craft and 11 miscellaneous 1,323,593 tons. She started the war with 5,945,410 ton'
\·essels. Of 600 naval vessels sunk, submarines got 199, air· afloat, adding during the war 3,520,568 tons built, cap.
cra ft got 220, surface craft got 114, the rest being sunk by tured or salvaged. At the war's end she had lost 8,236,070
a combination uf these or by other agents. lon , and wound up with only 231 vessels with a tonnag~ of
The followin g figures on the Jap merchant marine refer to 860,936 able to operate. And these were disappearing at
vessel of over 1,000 tons only. They represent cu rrent the rate of nearly 20 per cent a month. All together, subs
official Army and Navy estimates, but are subject to cor· got 5.128,425 tons, aircraft got 2,275,197 tons, mines got
rection. They are the payoff on a campaign that began 296,428 tons (over 60 per cent of this in 1945 alone). The
immediatel y after Pearl Harbor. However. because of con. balance is miscellaneous or unknown .

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BLOCKADE COli tinued

Shipping at Rahaui, major lap port in war's early phase, was wrecked by 5th AF 8-25s on 2 Nov. 1943.

Small cargo vessel, aLLempting to suppl y be leaguered J ap attack. Use of such obscure bays was resorted to after strikes
troops on ew Bri tain. eLLl e- in hallow bay after 5th AF at Rabaul (above) had made it too hot for shipping.
 - .

lap convoy was caught of} Kavieng, New Ireland, by FEAF bombers 0" 16 February 1944, two ships sunk.
Convoy of 30-plu ship was era ed in Bismarck sea action Fuel barge, skulking under cloak of vegetation in Pelikaan
by 5th AF in March 1943. Below, 300-£t cargo vessel burns. bay, Timor, flames after strafin g by Fifth Air Force B-25s.
lap frigate writhes in an inferno of fire from three 5th AF 8.258, will soon sink (see picture on page 42),
Snooper B·24 of the Thirteenth Air Force ca ught thi Japanese tanker Battleship Hyuga, smashed into a shambles by
in the Makassar strait near 8alikpapan on 19 March 1945, sank it. carrier planes, rests on bottom of Inland sea.
Mines are laid by radar 1lY B-29s flying at 3,000-5,000 ft. altitude.
MINING COMPLETED ISOLATION OF JAPAN
Mines were strung in rows with set
distances between each. To ensure
straight flying, B-29s took bearings on
small islands or points of land. This
is western approach to Shimonoseki.
To complete the blockade of Japan
started by the submarine, Operation
"Starvation" (strategic mining of Jap-
anese waters by B-29s) was com-
menced on 27 March 1945_ The mines
used were of two sizes: 1,000 Ibs. for
water up to 15 fathoms, and 2,000 Ibs.
for water up to 25 fathoms. All of
them rested on the sea bottom, and
could function properly in ten feet of
mud.
Mechanically, the mines were a
marvel of ingenuity. Said one B-29
pilot, "The damned things can do
everything but fry eggs." They could
be equ ipped with a "ship count" de-
vice which permitted a specified num-
ber of ships to pass into their field of
influence without causing detonation. Magnetic mine with parachute at-
This effectively foiled Jap minesweep- tached is photographed during test
ers, but was only used occasionally be- drop. It will sink to bottom, explode
cause it allowed some va luable ton- when influenced by metal in passing
nage to slip by. A "delayed arming" ship. Acoustic mines were also used.
Continued on next page
49
 BLOCKADE continued

device permitted the mine to come alive only after a pecified time had elapsed.
Every mine was equipped with a "sterilizing" mechanism which rendered it
impotent after a predetermined period.
The map at the right shows all mines laid, and gives a general idea of the over-
all blockade strategy. Below are shown details of various stages in the mining
campaign. This was divided into five phases.
Phase I: 27 March to 2 May. This was planned in support of the Okinawa opera-
tion. By mining the great ports of Kure, Hiroshima, Tokayama ( naval fueling
point) and the big base at Sasebo, naval units, which otherwise would have rushed
to the defense of Okinawa, were blockaded. Equally important was the mining of
Shimonoseki strait, which prevented the enemy Aeet from speeding to Okinawa
through Shimonoseki and down the relatively safe western side of Kyushu.
Phase 1/: 3 May to 12 May. Called the "Industrial Center Blockade," this phase
severed all major shipping lanes between the great industrial cities which de-
pended on water transportation for 75 per cent of their goods. The operation
extended from Shimonoseki strait east to Tokyo bay, with particular emphasis on
the vital Kobe-Osaka port system. Ship passages in the strait were reduced to two
and four a day by the end of May, compared with 40 a day in March.
Phase 1/1: 13 May to 6 June. The "minelayers" now went to work on ports in
northwestern Honshu, even going as far up as Niigata, which the Japs thought was
"too far north" for the B-29s. As a result, the heavy and direct ship routes to the
Asiatic mainland thinned away to almost nothing. At the same time, the B-29s
continued to pollute the Shimonoseki strait. In fact, nearly half of all mines
dropped during "Starvation" were earmarked for this bottleneck area.
Phase IV: 7 June to 8 July. Intensified mining of Northwestern Honshu and
Kyushu ports maintained the blockade. The great port system of Kobe-Osaka was
also mined repeatedly. as these ports were offering repair facilities to wounded
Jap shipping which was constantly attempting to limp through the Inland sea.
Phase V: 9 July to 15 August. To complete the blockade, mines were dropped
again on major harbors of Northwest Honshu and Kyushu, and as a final touch
the B-29s mined Fusan, on Korea's southern tip, and other Korean ports. On 6
August only 15,000 tons of operational shipping were pho tographed at Fusan,
whereas over 100,000 tons had been spotted there a few months earlier. Ship
losses for Phase V were estimated to be in excess of 300,000 tons. Only a trickle of
traffic still Aowed from the continent to Japan. All raw material shipment had
ceased, and the shipment of food was on ly a fraction of that required.
As for the aircraft score, a total of 1,528 B-29s were airborne to lay 12,053
mines in the targets-with the loss of 15 aircraft. In a unique operation, demand·
ing the utmost precision and navigational skill, the 313th Wing of the XXI
Bomber Command, and particularly its 505th Group, had made possible
the first strategic mining blockade in military history. Admiral Nimitz cab led to
General Le May: "The continued effectiveness of mining is a source of gratitude.
The planning and operational execution of aircraft mining on a scale never before The close-in blockade of Japan
attained has accomplished phenomenal results and is a credit to all concerned. (above) started when Subs and some

Before milling most cargo (thick After first phase traffic in Shimono- After· second phase traffic almost
line) went through Shimonoseki, seki shrank. Red areas in maps show stopped in Shimonoseki, Inland sea,
little (dotted lines) to west coast. mines laid in phase discussed. grew on the west coast (thin lines).

50
min es vi rtu a ll y severed direct routes (bl ack a rrows) to east a ttack, clogged Shimonoseki, the Inland sea (Kure, Kobe,
coast cen ters . Then mi ning, wi th some help from direct air o aka) and west coast ports such as Matsue, Toyama, Niigata.

After third phase. Minin g of west After fourth phase. Intensification After fifth phase. All-out mmm g
coast po rts cut activity th ere. Shimono- of minin g campaign cut flow still fur- effort included Korean ports, reduced
seki . Inland sea continu ed bl ockaded. th er. Korean ports were now vital. imports to tin y and haphazal1d trickl e.

51
 Part 5
THE B·2gers
Prologue: Mission to Y"W"t"~ ? Aug. 1945
The briefing began on 7 August at a half hour before mid- It was the last target to be hit by a massive force, composed
night. Five minutes ahead of time the B-29 crews of the of several wings. Actually, the phase was over six weeks
498th Group crowded into the big tin hut with its barrel-vault earlier when the 20th Air Force wound up its enormous 500-
roof which was their headquarters on Saipan. Most of them plane attacks on single industrial areas like Tokyo, Nagoya
wore one-piece flying suits, ready for the takeoff. Except for and Osaka. Since then the wings had been split up for the
something in their suntanned faces, sharpened rather than highly effective "night burn jobs" on Japan's smaller centers
hardened by combat, you would take them for any group of of industry. Yawata, then, was leftover business. Planned as
college freshmen with a few upper classmen thrown in. a daylight mission requiring visual bombing, it had been
They sat on long rows of backless wooden benches. In scheduled for two months, postponed again and again
the front rows sat the airplane com- because of poor weather.
manders, who maybe looked a little To most of the crews Yawata had
In this prologue to the story of
older. To them, as if they were special become somewhat of a bugbear. It was
how the B·2gers lived and fought,
elders of the church, were handed the expected that the steel plant would be
Captain Tom Prideaux, IMPACT's
target folders for the mission, bound in heavily defended, particularly by anti-
Pacific editor, tells about the 7
black-like hymn books. On the front aircraft. Losses during the past six weeks
August mission to Yawata, on
wall were posted huge maps, charts, and had been phenomenally low. Crews had
which he flew with the crew of
other statistics pertaining to the mission. begun to take these night incendiary mis-
No. 11 , 498th Group. Following
Only a half hour earlier the Group Intelli- sions almost casually. But now they were
the prologue, which gets No. 11
gence staff had been climbing ladders, returning to the rugged days of old, or so
started on the way, Captain
hurrying to paste up these maps, marking they thought. They recalled the fierce
Prideaux describes the principal
routes and figures with colored crayons. opposition at Tokyo and Nagoya . No-
aspects of B·29 operations. His
As everyone had been instructed, the body felt very casual about Yawata .
epilogue, or conclusion, picks up
target was to be the Empire's largest steel The briefing that was about to slart
No. 11 again and takes it to
center, Yawata, the Pittsburgh of Japan. in one hut on Saipan would be repeated
Yawata and back home.-EoIToR
In some ways Yawata was a milestone. 11 times that night. For there were
A little over a year ago, on 15 June 1944, separate briefings for each of the four
Yawata had been the target for the first historic B-29 attack groups in each of the three wings taking part: the 73rd Wing
on the Japanese homeland. Out of 68 planes that had taken on Saipan, the 58th and 313th Wings on Tinian. This was
off from the staging base at Chengtu, in China, only 47 hit the routine procedure, of course, if the word "routine" can be
primary target. Five planes were lost, all because of opera- applied to any procedure that brings some 3,000 young
tional failures. Damage to the target was slight. Those were American flyers together at midnight on two remote islands in
the days when some men questioned whether the B-29 would the South Pacific to scan maps, to study winds and clouds,
justify its existence. Now, a year later, the question was to pilot many thousand tons of machinery against a swarm
answered, and in a few days the war would be ended. In of hostile islanders.
that one intervening year the whole extraordinary success First to address the 498th Group was its commanding officer,
story of the B-29 had been wriHen, and by chance Yawata who announced the target. Next was the operations officer
was part of its prologue and epilogue. who told the size of the effort (three wings, or about 400
While Yawata deserves no special prominence as a mission, B-29s). Then the intelligence officer, pointing to the big aerial
it also marked the end of a major phase of B-29 operations. map on the wall, described the importance of the industrial
complex at Yawata . In turn, he described the 3,000-mile
"Mae Wests checked ... flak suits aboard?" asks Super- roule to and from the target, check points, assembly poinl,
fort commander during final inspection of his crew before aiming points, flak situation (moderate to intense over larget),
takeoff from Guam on the "Hirohito Highway" to Japan. enemy fighters (45 enemy aircraft might be airborne).

Continued on page 56
53
Squalling in their dispersal area at North field , Guam, are planes of the 29th
Bomb Group, 314th Wing. This view, lookin g east, shows part of the southwestern
area of the diagram below. The 19th B.G.'s B·29s are located in the background.

NORTH RUNWAY

SOUTH RUNWAY

TAKEOFF METHODS
Truly the "Miracle of the Marianas"
was the ground traffic direction control
sy tern used at the start of a B·29 mis·
sion to Japan. The diagram above
shows how one wing at North field ,
Guam , took off on a typical " ight
Burn Job." Each group appears at
normal strength of 33 planes, plu two
spares. By the war's end the maximum

lC 32C 110
group strength averaged well over 40.
At Zero hour plus one minute Wing
leader in No. 1 of the 39th Bomb
Group (A) is airborne at the end of
the orth runway while No. 1 of the
29th E.G. is halfway down South run-
way, 30 seconds behind. Others are all
lined up ready to go on signal from a
green Aldis lamp. One by one, the rest
move out on exact schedule from their
hardstands and taxi into position (fol-
low red arrows). Vacant stands are
SOUTH SErtlC[ APRON
11 _ _ _ -
11 _ _ _ _
-----
occupied by planes either unassigned
or in repair- Uncompleted areas are
shown in gray, outlined in white.
At left (opposite page) is the day-
time takeoff procedure for one group.
This differed from the night system
on Iy in that each group used both run-
ways to speed up assembly into forma-
tion . Here the 29th Group, third to
take off after the 19th and 39th, flies
32 planes, which are divided into two
sections, North (N) and South (S).
IJw'TUM
As soon as the first planes have been
given the gun (again at 30-second in-
terval), 8 N taxis over behind 7 N
while 2 S slides down the South run-
way into starting position. This con-
tinues until alJ the N planes are lined
up . Then the backlog of seven S
planes takes position. For clarity all
Superforts are shown out on the taxi
strips; in actuality the last 16 would
still be dispersed on their hardstands
at the time the group leader takes off.
55
 Cowling inspections we re la bo rio us routine for g round
crewmen who frequentl ), made engin e changes ove rni ght.
Co ntinued I rom page 53
The weather officer briefed next (4/10 clouds at target;
showers between target and base). Then the operations officer
spoke again, giving the assembly procedure (near Iwo Jima),
bombing altitude (21,000 feet), and types of bombs (SaO-pound
incendiary clusters; average of 24 clusters per bomber).
Bombs would be dropped at a signal given by the squadron
leader or his deputy. Tight formations were vital. How to
avoid the guns at Shimonoseki was stressed, along with orders
when to jam the enemy's radar.
Altogether the group briefing took about a half hour. Then
the crews broke up for separate, more detailed briefings for
the airplane commanders, flight engineers, radio operators,
gunners, and radar teams, which included navigators and
bombardiers.
With a few minutes to spare for themselves, many crews
went to their own barracks where some men, not flying the
mission, were asleep. In the dim light they picked up their
personal gear, stuffed a book or candy bar in their pockets,
went to the latrine, and, in one case, said goodbye to Yaki,
a frisky yellow pup of Japanese ancestry who had been
acquired from a local laundress. Yaki, a shameless turncoat
wanted desperately to fly the mission, and had to be coaxed
back into the barracks with blandishments and threats.
About 0100 the crews went to the mess hall for scrambled
eggs, home fried potatoes, tomato juice, bread and butter,
canned fruit cocktail. They then jumped onto the trucks that
were waiting outside to carry them to their own planes on the
hardstands of Isely field . For a moment, when the trucks began
to chug up the bumpy coral road, their headlights smothered
in dust, there was on outburst of talk. One boy called back
to his fat friend, "Hi, bulbous one." Then everybody was quiet.
Up on the hardstands the show was going full blast. The
big planes glistened under a battery of work lights. Electric
power plants rattled and roared. Ground crews scrambled
56
S uperforl armorer concentrates hard on his precise job of
placing a fuze into the tail of a SOO· lb. demolition bomb.
up the portable scaffolds to reach the enormous engines.
Every crevice, every crack in the planes' anatomy were being
probed. With their own peculiar set of surgical instruments,
the crews were tightening and testing nerves and tendons,
making sure they could stand the strain of combat, making
sure that the vital fluids ran smoothly through the metallic
veins. One carrot-topped mechanic cut his head on the sharp
corner of a cowl flop. Somebody held a flashlight to the
wound. A little blood seeped through the red hair. It wasn't
much of a cut.
On one hardstand rested a new plane, still unnamed, and
known only as "No. 11." Bombs were being towed toward
her on a string of dollies. Each dolly carried a bomb . One
by one, the dollies were rolled under the open bomb boys,
and a single strand of copper wire was looped under the
bomb . This wire was attached to a lifting mechanism inside
the plane which hoisted the SaO-pound bomb high into its
gaping belly. As it rose, the bomb teetered on its wire, was
steadied by a calm hand, and finally latched into place.
Meanwhile the crew hod stowed their chutes, Moe Wests,
canteens, oxygen masks, and other equipment into No . 11.
It was only a half hour before takeoff when on officer rolled
up in a jeep. He announced that the entire crew was scratched,
token off the mission. It seemed that over on a nearby
hardstand engine trouble had developed in a plane that wa s
to be flown by a squadron lead crew. The plane itself couldn't
be flown, but the experienced lead crew was needed. They
would fly No. 11. So the original crew hauled their belong-
ings back out. They were not unhappy about it.
The new crew was commanded by round-faced, sandy-
haired Captain George Criss of West Point. He wore a dark
red crew hat with his two bars pinned in front. Jaunty as it
was, it didn't make Criss seem any less calm and reliable.
B-29s were already turning clumsily out of their hardstands
and lining up on the taxi strip for the takeoff. Beams from
"Walking the props" through is the mechanics' last task
before engines are started. Excess oi l is flu shed this way.
their landing lights slashed through clouds of dust. More and
more motors began to howl. In No. 11, the 11 crew members
had taken possession. Sergeant "Red" Edwards, the radar
operator from Cleveland Heights, felt in his pocket for his
lucky silver dollar. He had bored a small hole in it for every
mission he had flown. There were 33 holes. Sergeant Martin
Rosenberg, once a night club head waiter in Philadelphia,
took out a photograph of his pretty wife, Clarice, and hung
it above his radio table. Rosey always took Clarice to Japan.
Only once he forgot her. Fifteen minutes before takeoff he
had told Captain Criss about it. The Captain ordered him to
take a jeep back to his barracks and pick up Clarice. Now,
Yawata would be "Rosey's" 35th mission and he was due to
go home to his wife.
The story of a B-29 taking off might well be a story of
closing doors .
With his crew in place, and engines started, Captain Criss
gave the order over his interphone to Flight Engineer Lt. Fizer.
"Close bomb bay doors."
Fizer pushed a switch, and on No. 11's under belly four
metal doors swung up and joined. By this ritual, the plane
had, as it were, accepted its cargo of bombs, and committed
itself to delivering them over the target.
"Doors and hatches closed."
These had been left open as long as possible so that any
gases could escape, generated inside the plane by the
auxiliary motor which operated the landing gear. This closing
of doors was a simple job, done by hand. At the same time,
Captain Criss and his co-pilot, Lt. Hugh Sherrill, reached up
and slid shut the windows over the pilots' seats. The night
wind was expelled, and with it the smell of land.
Then No . 11 taxied almost to the starting point. As the
plane ahead of it ' shot down the runway, No. 11 edged up
to the white starting line . Now the plane ahead was airborne.
"Clear on the left!" shouts the commander just before he
starts his engines. Signal warns anyone close to the props.
The flagman, who stood about 30 feet from the whirring
propellers, raised his hand. This signal meant that Captain
Criss must begin to roll in 10 seconds. He pushed the throttles.
Still stationary, the plane shuddered as if in one supreme
effort it were mustering its strength to forsake the earth. The
flagman's hand dropped. No. 11 surged forward, and
Captain Criss gave another order.
"Cowl flaps closed."
Now the small square ventilator flaps that are hinged
around the engines, like petals on some monstrous flower,
closed up. This third closing of doors streamlined the ~ngines,
made them less wind-resistant.
To many crews, the 40-second trip down the runway is the
longest leg of a mission. They sweat it out, mentally and
literally. All power from all four engines is usually needed to
lift some 137,000 pounds of airplane into the air. If one
engine conks out before you are airborne, it is too late to
stop. You probably crash. No . 11, however, cleared the
runway easily, and Captain Criss gave the last order.
"Gear up."
The co-pilot snapped another switch. The nose wheel with-
drew into its well, the left and right landing gears folded up,
and three more doors closed under them. The airplane had
finally renounced all connection with the earth. It was trimmed
for flight. It rocketed off into a sky filled with moving lights.
But they looked as small and remote as the stars.
On No. 11, heading toward Iwo Jima, the right gunner,
Tom Gore, Jr., from Tennessee, crawls into the long padded
tunnel that connects the two pressurized compartments, and
snatches an hour's sleep. His sleep is fairly peaceful because
he knows that he stands an excellent chance of surviving this,
or any, mission, and going home to run his own farm. This
tremendously important fact involves all the history records
and tactical doctrines of B-29 operations. They are the answer
to the question: Why can Tom Gore sleep?
Continued on next page
57
 Ope rational Growing Pains; Mission Pla,.,.i,.g
Behind every combat mission flown by the B-29s lay an
incredible amount of training, plannin g, sweat, sacrifice,
and guts. This informal report touches only a few random
details of the story. If they jostle together incongruously-
a general's courageous decision next to a sergeant's silver
dollar-it can only be pointed out, perhaps platitudinously,
that life itself i incongruous and final values are seldom
known.
The history of B-29 operations in the Pacific can be dated
from the arrival of the first bomber, an event which a cor-
poral in an air service group celebrated in a lengthy ballad.
It began:
THE FIRST B-29
On the thirteenth of October back in nineteen forty-four
The citizens of Saipan heard a great four-motor roar.
Bulldozers fled the runway, and soldiers stopped to cheer
As down came "Joltin' Josie-th e Pacific Pioneer."
An d all the J a ps still lurkin g in the cane fields and the caves
Peered out in fear, and ghosts of J aps were peering from
their graves.
Their plans for co-prosperi ty they kn ew they'd have to cancel
As out of "Joltin' Josie" bound ed General Haywood Hansell.
In stanzas that are somewhat less flowing, but historically
accurate, the corporal told how the first air service groups
had moved in two months earlier, built roads out of crushed
coral, hauled supplies, set up maintenance equipment on the
line "to be ready for the coming of the first 8-29." In full
detail he designated Brigadier General Hansell as the com-
mander of the XXI Bomber Command, told of the long train-
Journey's end for this ostrich-like Superfort was in shallow
water off the runway at Isely field , Saipan, on 27 Feb.
58
in g period in high-altitud e fl yin g over the plains of Kansas,
the six shakedown missions over Truk and I wo, the three
famou s recon missions of Tokyo Rose, and ended up with
the first Tokyo attack on 24 December when 111 B-29s at
Isel y Field, Saipan, took off on the 1,SOO-mile-Iong "Hiro-
hito Highway" to bomb the Musashino aircraft engine plant.
Wh ether his muse ran dry, or whether he felt the subject
unsuited to verse, the co rporal did not, at any rate, go on
to li st the countless problems that beset this pi-oneer wing.
And the No. 1 problem was weathel'. Japanese weather
showed its hand right from the start. On the first Tokyo
mission only seven percent of the bombs were dropped on
lhe target, due to heavy cloud cover. (Radar was an invalu-
able aid to navigation, but it could not at that time insure
precision from high altiudes.) During the first two and
a half months that the 73rd Wing, commanded by General
O'Donnell, carried on alone, its bombing results were far
f rom decisive. But this was a period of courage and daunt-
less perseverance, when problems were discovered, diag-
nosed, and solved, a period as essential to the ultimate suc-
cess of the 20th Air Force as a firm foundation is to a fort.
Indicative of the 73rd Wing's fighting spirit is the fact
that in ten days, starting with its debut over Tokyo, the
Jap capita l was walloped four times- and this despite the
haza rds of blazing a new air route, flyin g a new and not
fu II y perfected type of aircraft. Once it had started, the
Buddy sta n ds by to guard this crippled 29 from fi ghter .
attacks and escort it back to a safe landing at I wo Jima .
With its gross weight of 137,000 pounds, a B-29 is tough to
handle on takeoff if an engine conks out, as it did here.
Continued on page 60
 B-2gers continued
Wing kept punching to the limit of its strength.
The Japs struck back. Shortly after midnight, 27 Novem·
her, when the B·298 were lined up on Saipan's runway to
launch at dawn their second Tokyo strike, Jap raider
sneaked in to bomb and strafe the base. One B-29 received a
direct hit. It exploded and damaged other aircraft on
adjacent hardstands. But the mission was run as scheduled.
Radio Tokyo was broadca ting threats of Kamikaze ram-
ming. These seldom materialized, but they were a source
of some anxiety to our crews. Jap fighters appeared to be
bamboozled by the high speed and heavy armament of the
B-29. Almost all of their effective attacks were head-on. At
high altitudes, they didn't have enough speed differential to
attack from any other quarter. And even in head-on attacks,
with a closing speed of more than 500 miles an hour, the
B·29 could usually dodge its attackers by a quick flip of the
wing.
Jap fighters found they could do better by waiting until
some B-29, crippled by flak, lagged behind its formation,
and then, like vultures pouncing on wounded prey, chase it
50 or 100 miles out to sea. In most cases, though, the B-29
got away.
This policy of attacking stragglers continued throughout
the war. It was counteracted .by our "Buddy System," in
which one B-29 would fall out of formation to defend the
crippled plane, and, if it had to ditch, circle above the
urvivors, dropping life rafts and directing air-sea rescue
units to the scene. Sometimes an entire formation would
slow up in order that a limping B-29 could keep pace.
Fighter attacks, however, grew more and more fierce, and
accounted for most of our losses over the target. (At very
high altitudes flak was generally too inaccurate to be effec-
tive.) During the first five high-altitude strikes (28,000 to
~3,000 feet) on the Mitsubishi aircraft plant at north
Nagoya, the 13-29s were met by a total of 1,731 fighter at-
tacks. Our gunners shot down 48, probably destroyed 50
others. And on the Wing's 14th strike against the Jap home-
land on 27 January, "fighter opposition of unparalleled in-
tensity was met." Combat reports go on to tell how
"fanatical hopped-up pilots pressed their attacks right down
the formations' stream of fire, dove into formations to
attempt rammings, and sprayed fire at random." Five
B-29s went down over the target. Two ditched on the way
home, and 33 returned with battle scars. In turn, the B-29s
on this same mission destroyed 60 Jap fighters.
"Fuji in '44" became the name of a select group of air-
men who had used the famous Japanese mountain as a check
point. Pictures of B-29 formations against snow-capped
Fuji appeared as often in the Marianas as pictures of
Niagara Falls in oldtime parlors.
Greatest hindrance to bombing accuracy was the high
winds over the target. At 30,000 feet, high wind velocities up
to 230 mph were met, causing ground speeds as high as 550
mph when bombing downwind. These velocities were far
beyond the maximum provided for in the AAF bombing
tables. Moreover, the crews were often subjected to extreme
cold when the pressurizing system in their planes was
knocked out by enemy fire. This gave rise to a grim quip
having to do with a remedy for fleas. "Take your fleas with
you over Japan, and sta,b them with an ice pick."
60
But by now one fact was clear: the B-29 could take it. It
had come through its baptism of fire, had felt the full force
of Jap fury and Jap weather. It was a superb combat
weapon.
Ry now it was clear to any ohserver that the trategy for
hombin g Japan would follow much the same pattern as ill
Germany. And this was to bomb aircraft production fi rst.
As set forth in FM 100-20 on the Command and Employment
of Air Power, "The gaining of air superiority is the first
requirement for the success of any major land operation."
Before any priority targets were selected, however, intel-
ligence material was culled from every conceivable source.
In marked contrast to the European theater, where U. S.
target specialists could benefit from British intelligence and
where the Germans themselves, with their zeal for docu-
mentation, had published volumes of facts and figures about
their resources, wartime Japan was virtually terra incognita.
Planning war for many years, the naturally secretive Jap.
anese had taken extra pains that their plans should not be
known. In one of history's greatest fact hunts, information
had to be pieced together from reports made by mission-
aries, commercial travelers, former residents of Japan, U. S.
engineers who had been hired to build Jap plants, even from
napshots taken by American summer tourists. Added to
this were the fi rst reconnaissance photos taken back in the
sp ring of 1944 by 20th Air Force pilots whose daring China-
based photo missions, flown by single B-29s deep into enemy
territory, were among the war's most heroic deeds.
Starting with this remarkable compendium, much of it
still valid, two committees met in Washington: the Com-
mittee of Operational Analysts and the Joint Target Com-
mittee. They compiled a list of 1,000 precision objectives.
From this the Joint Chiefs of Staff picked out Jap aircraft
production, the coke, steel, and oil industries, shipping, and
the Japanese industrial urban areas as major targets. The
final priority list was drawn up by the C.O.A. in this order:
(1) aircraft industry, (2) urban industrial areas, (3) ship-
ping. A broad directive was issued to the XXI Bomber
Command, saying in effect, "Here are the types of targets.
Now the job is up to you ."
To transmute a general Washington directive into specific
orders for individual bomb crews in the Marianas required
still a vast amount of work. In rough outline, this is what
happened:
The job was assigned to target specialists of the Bomber
Command's A-2 (Intelligence), cooperating closely with A-3
(Operations). Their most crucial need was for detailed,
up-to-date facts about specific targets and the routes thereto.
These had to be obtained largely from aerial photos. Start-
ing in November, 1944, and operating out of the Marianas,
the 3rd Photo Squadron ran almost daily missions to Japan ,
flying B-29s modified for camera equipment. Guns, incident-
ally, were not sacrificed . By 1 August, the Squadron had
completed 433 such missions and had photographed literally
every square mile of Japan. Here were the eyes of the
B-2gers-the advance echelon of eyes.
Once the film was printed the PIs (photographic inter-
preters) got busy. They scrutinized each print through
magnifying glasses, spot~ed enemy defenses, landmarks,
analyzed targets, even estimated what kind of building
Continued on page 62
Twin-engined Japanese fighter (Nick) scuttles by a Superfort's wing (lop center) during a head-on attack.

One wing gone, a 29 hurtles down in flames after a direct Another victim of accurate Jap flak was this B-29, blown
Aak hit. Over 40% of all 10 ses occurred in the Tokyo area. almost to bits during its bomb run near Nagoya on 26 June.

61
 B-2gers continued

materials were used so that the bomb experts would know

what type of bombs could do most damage.
Armed with such data, the A-2 and A·3 men at Head·
quarters then proceeded to layout specific missions.
The technique of planning a mission evolved with prac·
tice. Eventually, a planning meeting was devised, an in·
formal round·table gathering of veteran operations officers.
along with pecialist on targets, navigation, weather, enemy
fighters and antiaircraft defenses, radar, radio, armament.
ordnance. and chemical warfare. Pure theory was not repre-
sented. These were men who from first-hand flying experi-
ence "knew what the hell it was all about."
Together Lhey drew up a kind of blue print for each mis-
sion_ It told the force required, bomb loads, routes and alti- Fast game of medicine ball on the beach at Saipan was tonic
tudes to and from the target, navigational check points_ ror Gen. Hansell (second at left ), first CO of the XXI B.C.
aiming points, axis and altitude of attack. These missions
were then submitted to the command ing general for his ap-
proval, and wrapped up for future use.
Immediately, however, each complete "b lue print" was
sent to the A-2 at each wing headquarters. Called a frag-
mentary plan, it was a Lip-off, a forewarning of what mis-
sions might be coming up, any time from three days to three
week. Several frag plans might be submi tted at one time.
Thanks to this advance warning, the wing A-2s could
assemble most of the data for a mission-maps, charts, and
so on-and keep them on file until more specific orders were
issued. This system al 0 enabled the wings to recommend
target studies, based on the f rag plan, for their own re-
pective bomber groups. In other words, it enab led the air-
plane crews to do homework on possible future targets, in-
stead of depending entirely on the final briefings.
Headquarters staff also benefited by the system . They
were not committed far in advance to bomb any single
target. They cou ld cut their cloth according to last-minute
requirement. Had they been committed and, for example,
had the target been "socked in" by bad weather, it would Good for morale were these officers vs. en listed men ball
have meant sitting idle until the weather improved. Now games. Above, Cpl. P. F. Murphy lays down a neat bunt.
there were alternate targets to pick from, and the entire air
force was ready to roll on anyone of them.
Final orders from the XXI Bomber Command were issued
by the commanding general in two installments.
(1) Intentions, usually one or two days ahead of a mis-
sion, clinched the target, authorized the wings to have their
groups prepare all material for briefings, and to haul bombs.
(2) Firm Decision, 12 to 24 hours ahead of a mission,
was issued to the wing after the final weather forecast. It
usually included the date and hour of takeoff, and gave
authorization to load bombs. All this was passed on to the
groups.
Each wing issued its own field orders, which included the
order of takeoff for each group. The group A-3 then pre-
pared a schedule, known as a flimsy, which was handed to
every airplane commander, stating the exact time and order
of takeoff for each individual aircraft within the group.
Thus each pilot, with his briefing and target study in
mind, and with his target folder and flimsy in hand, was
ready to bomb Japan, backed up by the knowledge and ex-
perience of many thousand men. In the deepest sense, the Pfe. Reese L. Bybee (left ) upheld honor of the AAF on
11 crewmen in a B-29 did not fly alone. Saipan by out-pointing Sailor Bob Robinson in a close bout.

62
Saipan Country Club featured high-class tennis matches
for B-29 crewmen who wanted to forget the war for a spell.
Boomtoml': Hom the Marianas Were Americanized
Meanwhile, a pattern of
living had begun to take
form and with minor vari-
ations repeated itself on
all three islands: Saipan,
Guam, Tinian. The bat-
tered remnants of Jap-
anese occupation were
pushed aside. The Age
of the Bu IIdozer had
dawned. Seabees and avi-
ation engineers pitched
their pup tents in the
mornin g near some clump
of tree for a landmark,
and at nightfall they
couldn 't find their way
Gen. Arnold talks shop tvith
8-29 cretv chw!, S / Sgt. Fliess. home. The landmark was
gone. The bulldozers had
been around. Acres of jungle were uprooted in a few hours,
making way for new air trips and bivouac areas. What
once looked like a tropical paradise on a tinted postcard
took on the character of all American pioneer settlement -
shanty towns, lumber camps, gold ru sh towns .
The winter of 1944·'45 was a season of mud or dust.
When the ground echelons of the 314th Bomb Group arrived
at Guam on 18 January, they hacked a site out of the jungle,
and in the evenings drove eight miles to Harmon field for
a hower, and were dust-covered again by the time they got
home. Men working on the runway at North field set up
their cots on the sidelines and rigged up pup tents on top
of the cots. On more than one morning they woke up after a
heavy rain to find that the water around them was cot-high,
and the pup tents presented the rather miraculous appear·
ance of being pitched on the surface of a lake.
Japs were sti II around but they were more of a nuisance
than a menace. The 314th Win g had it own private banshee,
presumably a Jap, wbo yowled hideous ly out of the jungle
about three o'clock every morning for a week, and was never
caught. It was not restful. One of the Wing's air service
groups, which bad pitched its camp on the edge of the jungle,
was so unnerved by the sights and sounds of prowling Japs
that at night they arranged their vehicles in a big emi -
Sweatin g o ut takeofI time of a mission wasn't so tough for
Superfort crews when they could play some quiet poker.
circle and directed all their head lights into the wilderness.
The Japs threw stones at tbe headlights.
The home-making instinct burgeoned. Over on Tinian,
where the 313th Group flew its fir t mission on 4 February.
officers were seen triumphantly bearing a cracked little
wooden box they had discovered in the canefie lds. It would
be used in their tents for a shelf, table, chair, bureau , or bar.
On Guam some men tried to grow tomato plants, but there
were no bees to pollinate the blossoms. One moonlight night
a general's aide was seen transferring pollen from blossom
to blossom on the end of a pipe cleaner. Growing vegetables
on Saipan was forbidden for a while because the soil was
declared unhealthy. But there was no ban on flower. One
airplane commander beautified the front yard of his Quonset
home with a picket fence, morning glories, dahlias. sun
flowers, sweet peas, and Burpee's Giant Zinnias (zinnias
grew in the Marianas far beyond the dreams of Burpee).
Rats were rampant. A big de-ratting contest wa held by
tbe residents of several Quonsets on Saipan. For every rat
shot dead, a rat was painted above the front · door. For a
wounded rat that got away, half a rat was painted up, and
listed as "a probable." At the end of two weeks, the men in
the winning Quonset were given a beer party by the losers.
Whiskey was common currency. A Jap Samurai sword, in
the open souvenir market, could be bought with three to nine
quarts of Old Grand-Dad. Open-air movie theaters sprouted
in the jungles and on hillsides like the amphitheatres of
ancient Greece. Many audiences sat on rows of bomb crates.
Church services were held, outdoors, in tents, and finally in
real churches, which were usually Quonset with a bunty
little steeple stuck on top. But the spire pointed heaven·
ward. Baseball fields, basketball and squash courts were
built, and used whenever possible. Music was everywhere
in the Marianas . Radios were forever blaring A Little on the
Lonely Side .
Galleries of pin-up girls appeared on the walls and ceil-
ings of shacks, tents, airplanes. Family snapshots were near
every bed. Of all the four-letter words current in the Army,
" home" was the most popular. Cooks mixed chocolate
custard in the big plexiglas blisters from wrecked B-29s. A
general at a staff meeting blew off because his post's ice
cream freezer was too long out of order.
Continued on next page
63
 B-2gers continued
Such detail s, insignificant in themse lves, were all evidence
of the Army's effort to keep al ert, to make the best of poor
livin g conditions so that the big job could be done.
By April Guam's Route No.1 became what is practically
th e symbo l of America: a straight paved road, lined with
telephone poles, and jammed with traffic. You felt that
such a highway must lead to a bi g city. The road had other
plans. Riding northward on Route No. 1, you came to a rise,
and then suddenly it was spread out before you: North field
'with its two 8,500·foot runwa ys, its miles of taxi strips and
hardstands, covered by a sea of B·29s, their rows of wings
shining in the sun , their tai I rudders arching up like surf.
It was a sati sfyin g way for one highway to end- and another
to begin.
An air war has some peculiar characteristics, which are
doubl y felt when it is waged from island bases, 1,500 miles
from the main targets. A large part of the war existed in
men's minds. Day by day, there was little evidence of combat
or violence; and when it came it was shortlived , except in
men's memories. A B-29 has engine trouble on takeoff,
cannot gain altitude, and crashes into the sea with an appall -
in g geyser of Aame. In one moment it is gone, while men
on the shore watch helpl essly. A B-29 comes back to Tinian
after a mission with three engin es shot out- the last one had
fail ed 50 miles from base. The pilot has radioed ahead.
Ambulances and fire trucks are waiting to meet him, if he
makes it. The suspense exi sts in hundreds of minds. Miracu -
lously, the pilot does make it. And after that, it is some-
thin g to tell about, to remember.
A takeoff at North fi eld is scheduled for 1900 (7 p.m. ) .
It is a maximum effort job, involving all four groups of one
win g, o r about 140 plan es. Ground crews, officers, enlisted
lU)o~ B-29 Haven and Fighter Spri,.gboa,ed
To every B-29 crew who Aew to Japan after March, the
fact that Iwo Jima had become a U. S. base was a cause for
thanksgiving. 1wo is eight miles long-a very littl e island.
But never did so little mean as much to so many. Located
about midway between Guam and Japan , Iwo broke the lon g
stretch, both goin g and coming. If you had engine trouble,
you held out for Iwo. If you were shot up over Japan and
had wounded aboard , you held out for Iwo . If th e weather
was too rough, you held out for Iwo. Formations assembled
over Iwo, and gassed up at Iwo for extra long missions. If
you needed fi ghter escort, it usuall y came from Iwo. If you
ha d to ditch or bailout, you knew that air-sea rescue units
were sent fr om I woo Even if you never used 1wo as an
emergency base, it was a psychological benefit. It was there
to fall back on.
From 4 March, when the first crippled B-29 landed there,
to the end of th e war 2,251 Superforts landed at I woo A
large number of these would have been lost if 1wo had not
been available. Each of the B-29s carried 11 crewmen, a
total of 24,761 men. It cost 4,SOO dead , ] 5,800 wounded ,
and 400 missing to take th e is land, a terrifi c price for the
Navy and Marines to pa y, but one for which every man who
served with the 20th Air Force and VII Fighter Command
is eterna 11 y grateful.
Iwo started with a crude dirt runwa y that barel y ac-
64
men line up on the mounds of coral along both runwa ys.
Two by two, the planes begin to take off, slowl y at first as
if they could never raise their tremendous bulk. As each
set of wheels finally leaves the ground , each man fee ls a
sense of relief. In less than an hour, the entire group is
airborne. Tail lights dwindl e into th e clouds and the last
plan es are out of sight. Not out of mind.
Sweating out a mission is an Air Force rite. Different men
do it in different ways, some by pla yin g poker, or waiting
for radio reports, or tryin g to slee p and forget. But nobod y
quite forgets. A ground crew member who is charged with
keeping a certain No. 3 engine in perfect condition, and has
named it after his wife, is sweating out all 18 cylinders of
No. 3. A colonel who briefed a group on enemy fi ghter op·
position wonders whether his briefin g wi II save or cost lives.
Not all sweating is done on the ground. The crews in the air
are thinking ahead about the few moments over the target.
A bomber outfit is fu II of thinkers.
So seldom do these inner emotions produce any outer
evidence, that when they do it is worth noting. There was
one target known as "Old 357," or " General O'Donnell's
Pet Little Target. " It was th e important Nakajima aircraft
plant near Tok yo. To destro y it became the special job of
the 73rd Wing on Saipan, and the target seemed to be jinxed.
They bombed it on 13 different missions, at a cost of 58
planes. On the nights before the later mi ssions were run
to Old 357, the barracks where the crew members slept were
quiet and dark as usual. There was onl y the meagerest evi -
dence of what was going on in their minds, while they took
the bomb run over and over again , while they weighed thei r
chances of livin g or d ying. It was a row of cigarettes g low-
ing in the dark.
commodated the first Superfo rt, whi ch was refu e led by gaso-
line carried in the helmets of marin e . At war's end , it had
an elaborate system of black·top run ways, gas pumps and
machinery which could handl e scores of B-29s.
This is where Major Charl es A. (Rocky) Stone came
in . They call ed him chi ef of B-29 maintenance but it was
easier to see him as the operator of " Rocky's Wayside Serv-
ice Station," the most important drop-in-and-fix-it station in
the world. Rocky is an ex-n avi gator who got his Iwo job
by telling a co lonel in the States, " Sir, I think your mainte·
nan ce section stinks." A produ ce trucker from California,
Rocky, with his square, stubbl e-bearded face under a bill ed
cap and a hunk of tobacco a lways clamped in his jaw,
looked the part of a big.time shop foreman. The story of hi s
Iwo works is well told by an officer who visited there earl y
in July during the period of night fire missions :
" At 3 :30 a.m . Rocky is up, waitin g in greasy khaki s on the
line. There is nothin g in the sky yet, not a light or sound ,
except the soft murmur of the night wind from the sea. The
highway through the clouds west of I wo is empty, but Rocky
and other cap-billed men who huddle by the runway know
the traffic will come booming down it in a few minutes now,
in the packed, early morning ru sh back to the Marianas.
"The first airplane light comes out of the north, and
behind it is a second and third. The string of them begins
Continued on page 69
Ruggedness of I wo campa ign is symbolized by these skele- after D-Day, though mopping-up lasted until mid-April.
tons of Jap planes on the hillside near Motoyama airfield Marine casualties were high (32.6% of force involved ), but
No _ 1. A II or~aniz('d resistanc.(' c.eased on 16 March_ 26 day~ the ('n('my lost 22'::122 kill('d . Only ~92 wer(' captured.

65
 B-2gers (,()lItilllled

-. ~
.
r---,.--
__ I

- --
Il".~i('.~t plm'(' OIl IIlII/IIl/int: Iwo was the flight line at Central field after a night mission to Japan. Here the 29s

Major Rocky Stone ( right ) sizes up the repairs or service "Off with the old, on with the new" mi ght have heen a
needed and wastes no time getting his ground crew rolling. slogan for Iwo' mechani cs. shown here in ~ t a ll ing- a prop .

66
rereived whatever repairs they needed. lwo filling station supplied super-deluxe rapid service to the 8-29s.

Runaway prop flew off. knocked out th e o. 4 engine and Same B-29 as at left cra hed into ano ther battle-damaged
ripped thi s hu ge hol e in the fu selage of Superfortress. 29 at I wo . Bombardier's sp rained ankle was the on ly injury.

67
Locked brakes caused this Superfort, returning to Iwo on Aight line. Two crew members were burned seve rely.
from a Tokyo strik e, to ca reen through four P·Sl s parked Men crouched behind jee p to avo id ex pl oding a mmunition.

Though no longer able to power a 8-29, these battle-damaged engines were stripped to provide spare parts.
to move across. They are on the way home. Then one bead
drops out of the necklace of lights. The bead wheels down
and away from the rest of the string. Its crew is not happy.
It has troubles. Except for I wo it might have to crash in the
ocean. Rocky watches the plane as it takes shape. He sizes
it up, much as a filling station operator sizes up a car which
leaves the main traffic line and turns in under his shed, or a
round·house foreman sees a locomotive steam in. Expertly
he studies the Superfort on its approach. It is still pitch
dark. The descending B-29 looks more like a platform than
an airplane. It is a tremendous steel platform, weighing
125,000 pounds and flashing with lights. Its landing gears
come down like club feet lowered inquiringly into space.
They grope delicately for the more so lid but treacherous
level of the ground. 'Engines are okay,' Rocky says. 'Refuel
job.' Before the plane stops he has it shunted to the refueling
section. No delay. No time wasted. The taxiway is built in a
half circle, and the bomber simp ly continues around it until
it reaches an area of gas pumps. It is the first in a long line
which will form there. and automatically it is placed first in
line to take off.
"The next plane landin g is different. You can see that
far out in the sky as it turns to come in. A brownish trail
of smoke hangs out behind it like a thin tail in the light
now half moonlight, half dawn. One engine is feathered
and still. It stands out lookin g crippled and so re, like a
broken hand. Crash truck and ambulance drivers tense. The
plane is logy and it waves from side to side as it jockeys
for a straight landing position.
"Rocky Stone. the diagnostician, stands motionless.
'Major cause.' he says. 'We'll put her over the maintenance
mat.' The plane yanks sideways on the landing, but, fortu·
nately for the men on the sideline, straightens . Before it has
rolled to a stop_ Rocky's men steer it into the main mainte-
nance department where serious overhau lin g is done. The
good engines scarcely jerk to a halt before mechanics begin
tearing out the bad one. anrl a new engine is already on its
way from the shop.
"In a jeep, Rocky rides herd on these monsters that come
pi lin a out of the dawn sky. He drives right up into the
pounding bombardment their propwash beats in the dust.
He and other men in jeeps, sparrows pecking at eagles, peck
and prod them into their right places. There is the feeling
of haste and strain. The big boys have dropped momentarily
out of the race and everyone on I wo Jima is hurrying to get
them back in it again . No minute can be wasted. Nothing
must delay the continuous hom bing of Japan.
"Rocky watched a burning Superfort come in recently.
[t was crabbing in sideways. One wing was in full blaze.
Rocky didn' t move from his place near the runway. The
plane partially landed , partially fell on the strip. Men pil.ed
out of all sides of it as it came streaking down the stnp.
"Then Rocky saw something e lse. The plane wasn't
~oing to stop. It was going to rush off one side of the run·
way and into a line of parked airplanes. He ran along.
side of it in his jeep and signaled to the pilot to stop. Then
suddenly he realized there was no pilot in the plane. The
pilot had scramb led out with the crew, fearing explosion.
"Rocky thought fast. He brought the jeep beneath the
plane's wing. anrl leavin~ his jeep running. hnrtlerl
into the hot cabin. In the plane-which might have ex·
ploded any moment-he applied the brakes. It stopped just
short of the line of parked airplanes."
In the grand strategy of the Pacific war, Iwo Jima was
expected to serve primarily as a base for fighters escorting
8-29s. As stated above, it served the B-29s even more
importantly. But it did become the base for the VII Fighter
Command, which made combat history in its own right.
Pilots of the VIIth flew some of the longest, toughest mis-
sions ever undertaken by a fighter outfit. They had to fly
in weather that earned every foul name in the Army's
lexicon of abuse. Jack-knifed into the cramped cockpits of
their P-51s, they flew for eight or nine hours over 1,600
miles of sea, for only a few minutes' strafing of enemy air-
fields and other targets. "It wasn't so bad after the first
hour because your legs go t numb," said one pilot. "But
when you got home, yo u didn't feel much like sitting. You
were raw."
The Mustangs started moving to Iwo early in March. The
first chores were aid on Iwo itself to the still embattled
marines, and neutralizing raids against Jap positions in the
nearby Bonins. As all-around trouble shooters, the P-51s
often found that trouble had evaporated before they had
much chance to shoot at it. The expected Jap attacks on Iwo
seldom materialized. In part, this was because the presence
of fighters scared them off and partly because, with the loss
of I wo and the threatened loss of Okinawa, the Jap decided
to pull in their horns and concentrate on Kamikaze attacks.
On 7 April the Fighter Command began what presumably
was to be its No. 1 assignment. One hundred and eight
P-51s took off to escort B-29s on a daylight mission to
Tokyo, and proved their usefulness at once by shoo ting
down 21 Jap fighters at a loss of only two P-51s. From
that date until the Jap surrender, ten escort missions were
flown. This relatively small number was due to the sudden
increase of night incendiary attacks for which no escort
was required.
The fighters' real foe, as always, was weather. On 1 June,
as they returned from escorting B-29s on a daylight in-
cendiary attack on Osaka, 24 P-51s were lost in a frontal
area extending from the surface to 23,000 feet, with zero
visibi lity, heavy rain. snow and icing conditions. What
these planes went through, battered and tossed in a seething
cauldron of black weather. nobody will ever know. Two
more fighters collided and crashed. One pilot from the 14th
Fighter Squadron spent six days in a one-man raft, and was
knocked out of the raft five times by waves. He was finally
picked up by a submarine, which by pure luck happened to
be surfaced . On his fifth day he weathered the typhoon
which ripped the bow off the cruiser Pittsburgh. His only
comment on the ordeal was. -'I just sat there."
On 16 April the Command began its series of sweeps on
Jap gro und installations. and for the first time was in
husiness for itself. Altogether. it was able to laun ch 33
effective strikes, and was going strong when the war ended,
a partner of the much bigger and. of course. more power·
ful Navy carrier air forces.
There is no question that these attacks hel ped deny the
Japs the use of airfields in the Tokyo-Nagoya·Osaka area,
whi le the Okinawa-based fil!hters did likewise for the
Continued on next page
69
 Waist gunner of escort 8·29 watches a trio of Mustangs flying close· in during a fighter sweep to Japan.
Kyushu·Shikoku area. The Japs were forced to camo uflage
their plane under trees. in revetments. in cemeteries. Planes
were parked as far as five miles from airfields. which meant
that by the time a plane had been taxied to its field it
engines had become so ove rheated that it couldn't be flown
for awhile. Thi enforced dispersal comp licated the Jap
maintenance problem tenfold-and the Japs at best were
never too good at maintenance. From the fighter pilot's
viewpoint, it wa discouraging sometimes to get all the way
to Japan , and not be able to rip into a sittin g duck.
" 'ith airfields knocked out. railroads. power houses. fac·
torie , and coa twi e shipping became prime targets of
opportunity.
As a sidelight, it is interesting to note that the Japs ap·
peared to have no adequate aircraft warn ing facilities. Our
fighters were con tinuall y ca tchin g Japs running for cover.
jumping off bicycles, piling out of trains and tru cks. even
70
rUllning from tennis cou rts. It became a cou rt martial
offense to strafe civilians and non·military targets such as
isolated houses. si los, hospita ls, school s.
The success of the fighter strikes depended to a large
extent on licking the naviga tional problem. This involved
a reversal of the standard procedure of fighters escorting
bombers, and required that the B·29s be used as escorts.
The tactical unit for the P·SIs was th e group, which con·
sisted of three squadrons of 16 planes each, plus two spares
per squadron. The fighters took off two at a time, with
IS·second intervals between each pai r. and fell into forma·
tion about five miles offshore. then proceeded to the rendez·
vous point at Kita, a pinpoint volcanic island about 40 miles
north. There the group joined three navigational B·29s
which had taken off from I wo about a half hour ea rlier, and
were circ lin g over Kita until the fighters pulled in.
It was th e job of the big planes to lead the littl e ones
Pointing for Tokyo, P·51s on this mission aren't straying far from the "shepherd" who takes them both ways.
acros the 600-mile stretch of sea to Japan_ givin g th em the
benefit of their supe rio r naviga tional aids. and sta nding
ready to drop rescue equipment in case a fi ghte r was forced
do wn_ Th e lead squadron of th e fi ghter group fl ew about a
quarte r of a mil e behind the B-29s_ and other formation s
followed cl ose after.
Thu s chaperoned, th e fi ghte rs proceeded to the Depa rture
Point, u ually about 20 or 30 miles off the Jap coast, and
th en truck off by themse lves to attack the target. Mean-
while, the B-29s proceeded 50 or 100 mil es to the Rall y
Point, where the fi ghte rs were expected to reassemble afte r
the strike. For the B-29s, it was simpl y a case of circling
the Rally Point for a half hour or lon ger. waiting for the
scra pp y smallfry to come back- if the y did_
It was cu tomary for each group to concentrate on only
one target at a time. in order to provide mutual protection
against enemy air attack and gro und fire_ Usually two
squadron s attacked the targe t. while the third provided top
cove r. Th en the cove rin g quad ron ca me down and took a
c rack at the target. whi Ie another squadron went upstairs.
But the group as a unit always stuck together. After the
strike, the plan es proceeded by units of not less than a
pair back to th e Rall y Point where th e B-29s were waiting.
Th e rounding-up of the fi ghters was expedited by a system
of plane-to-plane radio tele phone communi cation , which
enabl ed one or more groups of fi ghters to be in constant
touch with th eir navi gational guides . (Thi arne y tern
links the fi ghters with air-sea-rescue unit , and has been
responsible for aving the lives of man y pilots lost in bad
weather or forced down at sea . ) The fi ghter pilots and their
B-29 guides are like characters in a va t combat drama,
makin g their entrances and exits as th ey careen through the
clouds at lightnin g speed_ speakin g lines that sound like
doubl e- talk bu t are often a matte r of life or death.
Co ntinued on page 73
71
Engine of this Mustang conked on take-off due to Iwo's volcanic dust. Injured pilot (right) is helped away.

Another P-51 is hoisted from 'wo's runway after its engine quit. The fire is from the plane in picture above.
~;Iicf'd in two by Jap AA this Mustang
Its stabilizer almost P-47Ns began operatio ns from lwo in July. While on a
just made it hack to Iwo OK . Mt. Suribachi is at right. "hake-down mi sion , this one s pun into a hill , killed pilot.
Continued from page 71
What follows here i a snatch of dialogue that might be
heard as the fighters approach the Rally Point after an attack
on Himeji airfield. The code names are fictional, but follow
closely the actual names. The characters: 48 fighters ca lled
Small Fry; divided into three squadrons known respectively
as Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant; three Navigational B-29-
Uncle Adam, Uncle Bill , Uncle Charles; a Super Dumbo
(a ir-sea-rescue B-29) known as Cartwheel.
When our action starts, the fighters are just returning to
the Rally Point about 20 miles ofT Japan, where the three
13·295 are orbiting, waiting to guide them home.
UNCLE ADAM (the lead B-29): Any more Doctor ships
approaching the Rally Point? Give Uncle Adam a call.
UNCLE CHARLES: Uncle Adam, this is Uncle Charles. I
have seven Doctor ships with me, and ten Lawyers. I'm
proceeding home on a 185 course.
U CLE ADAM: All Small Fry coming into the Rally Point:
Uncle Charles has just headed on cour e 185. Follow him.
(Five more Small Fry join Uncle Charles and start home.
A few minutes later Uncle Bill rounds up 13 Sma ll Fry
and also starts home. Uncle Adam waits for the last three
stragglers. )
DOCTOR RED ONE (a fighter): This is Doctor Red One
calling Cartwheel. (Cartwheel is one of the Super Dumbos
(a B-29) circling a submarine posted at one of the Air-Sea-
Rescue stations. Due to faulty communication, Cartwheel
does not hear the fighter's message. )
UNCLE ADAM: Doctor Red One, this is Uncle Adam. I'll
relay your message to Cartwheel 42 .
DOCTOR RED ONE: My engine's smoking from flak hit.
I'm at Silver Moon , seven Zero (code for his location)
Going to sp lash.
U CLE ADAM: H.oger. (He switches to a special Air-Sea-
Rescue radio channel.) This is Uncle Adam calling Cart-
wheel 42. Splash at Silver Moon , seven Zero.
CARTWHEEL 42: Roger. Proceeding to scene of splash.
DOCTOR RED Two (wing man to the fighter in trouble):
Shadows grew long before the fighters got back home to 'woo Missions used to last eight hours or longer.
Calling Cartwheel 42. Man in Goodyear (rubber life raft),
same po ition. I'm circling scene with Rooster showing
Mayday.
(This last remark refers to his IFF system which will help
guide Cartwheel 42 to the scene. Again, Uncle Adam re-
lays this message to Cartwheel 42. Within ten minutes Cart-
wheel 42 arrives over the man in the rubber raft, and then
ca ll s a submarine to the scene. Defying the Jap Air Force
and Navy, the sub heads toward the enemy coast to pick up
the downed airman, while the Super Dumbo stands by until
the rescue is completed. Meanwhile, Uncle Adam continues
hi business.)
UNCLE ADAM: (Picking up the last two Small Fry.) This
is Uncle Adam callin g all Sma ll Fry. I'm heading home
on course 360. Follow me.
MISSION COMPLETED
For the B-29 pilots this escort work may sound like a
comparatively easy a signment. They did not run into much
combat. But most of them wou ld far rather have faced com-
bat and been spared the worry and str-ain of shepherding a
flock of fighter pilots who had become their close friends.
"Hell," said one B-29 pilot, as he came back to Iwo after two
fighters had been shot down over Japan . " You live and eat
with these boys. You take their money at poker. You know
all about them. That's why- " He didn't feel like talking
any more.
Fighters were also aided by radar-equipped Black Widows
(P-61s) who, in addition to patro l and combat duties, often
guided P-Sls onto Iwo's runways when they were socked in.
Returning from a mission, pilots usually retired to a bath
house built especially for fighter clientele. Here was a rub-
down table and a row of deep tin tubs. The tubs were fed by
hot, suI phurous water that springs from I wo's volcanic
depths. Hot water is an almost unheard-of luxury in the
Pacific. After soaking their muscles in these curative baths,
U. S. airmen had still another reason to thank God, and the
Marines, for one of the world 's most ugly, useful islands.
 8-29 PAYOFF continued

- - 58th WING 73rd WING

- - - 3131h WING
_ ROUTES OF WINGS

ROUTES OF

4- NAVY

SUBMARINE 3

74
 20th's ROUGHEST MISSION
Both the Pacific and the Europea n air wars had one fi erce,
furiou s miss ion that its survivors will never forget. It stands
out above the others becau e our losses were es peciall y heav y
and the combat was e pecially bitter. In Europe it was, of
co ur e, the famou s Regensburg-Schweinf urt attack on 17
August 1943 when we lost 60 bombers. In the Pacific it was
Mission 183 to Tokyo's urban area on the night of 25-26
May 1945 . Fact and fi gures pertaining to 183 are treated
cy raphicall y on the two diagrams at the left.
Of all th e Twentieth Air Force miss ions, this was the most
costly. Also it was the most profitabl e.
Of 498 airborne plan es _ 464 bombed the primary target.
Twenty-s ix were lost to enemy action, which i 5.6 per cent
of th e attacking force.
Of the 5,586 c rew me mbe rs, 254 were casualties.
On the credit id e, ] 8.9 sq uare mil es of Tokyo were wiped
out- th e record fo r a sin g le in cend iary attack.
Our losses to kno wn ca uses are indicated by the blue
numeral in the lowe r diagram. Of planes that were missing
fo r unknown reasons, th e majority were undoubtedl y ac-
'. co unted for by AA. One hundred Superforts, 21. 3 pe r cent,
got back with Aak damage. The Japs put on a spectacular
display of sea rchli ght , rockets, weird "balls of fire," Baka
bombs and all th e other tricks in th eir bag. Some 94 attacks
were attempted by the enem y intercep tors. Seventeen were
c laimed to have been shot down and four damaged.
From each wing the re were twelve pathfinde r planes,
whose routes are indicated, on the lower diagram , by narrow
white lin es. Th ese lin e coin cide with th e blue "wi ng lines"
f rom th eir bases to I wo Jima . Then th ey converge in a solid
white lin e on the route from Iwo to Tokyo. Flown by
peciall y trained crews, these pathfinder B-29s carried
500-lb. in cendiary bombs des igned to penetrate the mo t fire-
resistant co ncrete buildings and to start large-scale fires that
would id entif y th e target a reas for the win gs that followed
later.
Ai r-sea rescue submarines and surface vessels (des troyers
or des tro ye r escort) remained at their indicated stations
all durin g the 14-hour mission. Dumbos (Catalinas and
B-17s ) and four B-29 Super Dumbos stood by until the
trike aircraft had passed . Then they moved up nea r Japan ,
sea rchin g for anybody who was in trouble. Crash boats
sta yed on duty durin g takeoffs and landings at the Mariana
bases. (See next page for an account of the organization of
air-sea re cue.)
The diag ram a t the top of th e page shows the weather en-
co untered on the route to Japan by the B-29 . The fra ction
(8/ lOth , e tc.) indicate th e amount of cloud cover observed
at various tage durin cy the mi ssion. Because weather con-
dition were so terribl e at lwo Jima, only one battle-
damaged plane wa able to land the re on the return trip. It

17 will be noticed that the a ltitude flown by each of the four

wings are shown by white lines which are keyed to the same
legend a th e blue line in the lower diag ram.
In th e target area, towering smoke co lumns and violent
the rmal s forced 300 plane to bomb by radar, some as high
as 20,000 feet, although weather at Tokyo was actuall y clear.

75
 B-2gers continued
A Tale of Bumbos, Super Bumbos and Subs
Not even the ugly gulls were flying from Iwo the morning
of 16 May. Being birds, being smart, they knew when flying
things were supposed to stay on the ground. Yet when a
B·29 pilot returning from Tokyo sent a distress message
from 250 miles out at sea, a Flying Fortress carrying a boat
under its belly slipped up into the whiteness. A little later
the plane, flown by Rescue Pilot Lieutenant Ernest Witham,
of Gary, Indiana, nosed down through a hole in the fog and
dropped its life boat to 10 men bobbing in the surf off
Sofajoan Rock. Ten men crawled into the boat and were
saved by the surface craft that Witham soon guided to their
rescue.
Now as a dark storm blew up , all Witham and his crew
had to worry about was themselves. They found Iwo hidden
in fog when they returned. Only one small uncomp leted
runway was visible.
Dangerously low on gas, the plane circled. Then the con·
trol tower operator radioed from the ground, " Fly around
just 10 more minutes and you can land."
"But," said the pilot, "that runway's not finished yet.
It's got bumps and holes in it."
" Sure," said the operator, "but I've called the Aviation
Engineers. They're going to finish it right now- in the next
10 minutes."
And so they did , rushing around knocking down bunkers
and filling up holes. In 10 minutes the fie ld was finished
and the Fortress came in for a rough but safe landing.
It was just another rou tine Air-Sea Rescue flight.
The Flying Fortress which spotted the crippled B-29 and
saved its crew did not just happen along. It was part of a
tremendous life-net of airplanes, and any craft available,
which could be thrown quickly across any part of the Pacific
where Americans were flying. In the Marianas the Navy
controlled Air-Sea Rescue, but the Army's 4th Emergency
Rescue Squadron furnished the B-17s and Catalinas which
carried the biggest burden in Twentieth Air Force Opera-
tions. B-17s, carrying boats, flew side by side with Navy
PBYs, and both Army and Navy men flew that traditional
rescue boat, the Catalina. Notified of a survivor's position
by these searching airplanes, submarines, destroyers, even
battleships have veered from their course to rescue a single
man.
With the exception of takeoff crashes, the great majority
of distress incidents were caused by enemy action over the
target, which resulted in planes going down on the home-
ward trip. Therefore, for any B-29 mission to Japan, a more
or less standard pattern of rescue stations (p lanes, boats,
subs) was spread along the return route between Japan and
Two Jima.
A single rescue team usually consisted of a submarine with
one or two Dumbos (B-17s) circling over it. These teams
were spaced so that any point along the return route could
be reached by a rescue plane in 20 to 30 minutes, and by
rescue vessels in four hours, at the most. Three subs and
one surface vessel were customarily spread out between
Japan and Iwo , with the northernmost sub 20 or 30 miles
from the Jap coast. During fighter strikes the subs moved
as close as five miles. Due to their hazardous position , they
were usually covered by two Super Dumbos (B-29s).
76
Here is how the plan worked, as it was finally evolved.
When a mission was scheduled, Bomber Headquarters'
phoned to ComSubPac at Guam and received immediate in-
formation as to which subs would be available, their ca1l5
and positions. Th is data was included in the request dis-
patch which was then sent to Air-Sea Rescue units at I wo
Jima, calling for surface vessels and Dumbos.
The rescue plan was also sent to each Bomb Wing par-
ticipating in the mission so that its crews could be properly
briefed. Each wing was expected to provide its own Super
Dumbos-usually two-for sub cover, and crews were
rotated for this special duty.
When the mission was in progress, if any distress incidents
occurred, the call for help was usually radioed to Wing
Headquarters, which assumed the responsibility of notifying
the rescue agencies on Iwo or Saipan. Direct communication
between disabled aircraft and rescue units at sea was also
carried on, but the wing was still the focal point for all
information regarding its own aircraft in trouble.
From November of last year-when mass operations
began against Japan- through the month of July, more than
600 20th AF flyers were saved in open-sea rescues. To make
these pick-ups, more than 2,000 mi les were flown for every
man saved.
Cold statistics can never tell the life or death story behind
every rescue. They can never tell , for example, how Lieu-
tenant Lamar Christian felt when he bailed out of his P -5l
five miles from the Jap coast. As he floated down over the
water, he knew that the Japs were watching him from shore,
and wou ld most certain ly put out a boat to capture him .
From ou t of nowhere a Flying Fortress appeared, and began
to circle him. The minute he splashed, the plane came low,
dropped a smoke bomb beside him to mark his position.
Then it flashed a message to a nearby submarine which in
turn raced for the dirty smudge of smoke now standing like
a plume on the horizon . Thirty minutes after he jumped,
Lieutenant Christian was safely aboard the sub.
Meanwhile another fighter plane had come staggering out
to sea. A man could have jumped through the flak hole in
its wing. In its cockpit Lieutenant Frank Ayres of Lake
Charles, Louisiana, knew he could never make it back to
base, never would get home to tell about the two Jap fighters
he had just bagged over Shimodate airfield- or so it seemed
until he spotted the friendly B-29.
"I'm bai ling out," he shouted into his radio.
"We know," came the answer. " But a sub's picking up
another man now. If you can stay aloft for five more
minutes we can give you better attention ."
Better attention within five mi les of Japan? Within
range of Jap shore guns? Ayres wrestled with his plane and
kept it in the air the additiona l five minutes . When he
jumped out the submarine coasted alongside him and picked
him up before he could free himself from the parachute.
"Again?" said Ayres.
It was unbe lievable now that he had time to think of it.
Twice he had faced what seemed almost certain death upon
bailing out over the ocean. Twice he had been picked up just
as he struck the water. This was the second time he had been
saved from the ocean within a period of one month.
 Search proceeds for a P·51 pilot shot down on a strafing
1 mission a t Chichi Jima. Speciall y modified B·17
equip ped with " Fl yin g Dutchman" lifeboat and operating
from airfi eld on Iwo Jima , is plan e pictured in thi sequence.
B·17 crew has spotted their man and has released " Fl ying
3 Dutchman. " Wh en lifeboat hits wa ter, smoke markers go
off to how it location. In three and one ha lf years, air·sea
rescue cha nged from haphazard lu ck to scientific operation .
5 De troye r a rrives to compl ete the rescue. B·17 has stayed
a round to vector the hip to the lifeboat. Most vital fac·
tor in successful rescue is dependabi e radio communications
which eve ryone concerned knows ho w to operate properly.
Rescue plane, with photographic escort, skirts the shore
2 of Chichi at low altitude. Previou s advice radioed from
the P·51 squadron leader has fixed approximate position
of distressed pilot, a very small target in the open sea.
Pilot is in the boat before th e smoke markers burn out.
4 Air·sea rescue was a smooth running bu iness in which
tandard procedures were developed for submarine , naval
craft, and planes to cooperate in gettin g back downed men.
6 Pilot comes aboard for the trip back to Iwo. Besides
avin g hund reds of lives, rescue se rvice wa a moral e
booster that paid off in in creased effi ciency. It was the chief
factor that mitigated the fears of over·water combat fl ying.
77
 B-2gers continued
Turl.ing Poil.t: Gen. Le A"'ay ~s
On 20 January. Major General Curtis LeMa y took charge
of th e XXI Bomber Command, with its headquarters on
Guam. He had left Eu rope in 1944 to assume command of
the India·based B·29 ope ration s, two month after they had
started. ow he had left India to assume command of B·29
operations in the Mariana two months after the fi rst Tokyo
mission. A B·29 can run into a good deal of troub lc in two
months .
In China the main troubl e had been di stan ce, uppl y and
to so me extent, weather. In the Mariana it was largely
weather. Due to trea che rous, unpredictabl e weather. not one
of th e 11 priority targe ts was destro yed in th e fir ' t 2.000
sorti es . A third of the total effort had been s pent on Mu a·
shin o-Target 357- and it was only four pe r cent destro yed.
Th re was only one opportunity for visua l bombin g durin g
General LeMa y's first six weeks at Guam.
Even when good weather prevailed ove r the targe t, the
B·29 often had to batt le their wa y throu gh evere fronts on
the long oversea s fli g ht. Formation s were scattered and man y
crew missed th e briefed landfall by a co nside rable distance.
~ ' ith a sma ll fu e l rese rve on hi gh.altitude miss ion s, error
in navigation were ometime impossibl e to correct and
airc raft were forced to return early or bomb a targe t of
opportunity. An added obstacle to navi ga tion was th e fa ct
that Jap.held is land s on route could not be used as check
points for fear of al e rtin g the enem y radar ystem. But the
tou ghest probl em. as mention ed ea rl ier, wa the terrifi c wind
ve locity at hi <Yh altitudes over Japan. True, some c rews
were able to hit th e targe t con sis tentl y. But th ey were an
exception , provin g that more than average trainin g and un·
usual aptitude were needed to do the job (a lead c rew school
was started in an effort to discover and train such leaders) .
Another res ult of th e hi g h·altitude attacks was the cumula·
tive strain on m en and equipment. Lon g formation fli ghts
shortened eng in e life, co ntributed g rea tl y to crew fati gue.
Again t thi background of poor co ndition s and poor reo
sults, it was decided to de part radi ca ll y from th e traditiona l
do ctrine of strategic bombardment. Just how radi call y was
not known to most of th e fl ye rs unti I th e me morable mornin<Y
of 9 March when in all briefing rooms throu g hout the Mari·
ana an announcement was made. It was followed by a ud·
den , shocked silen ce as the crews began to rea lize what they
had just heard:
(l ) A se ri es of maximum effort ni ght in cendiar y attacks
were to be mad e on major Japanese indus trial cities.
(2) Bombin g altitudes would be from 5,000 10 8,000 fee t.
(3) 0 armament or ammunition wou ld be carried and
the ize of th e crew wou ld be redu ced .
(4) Aircraft would attack indi iduall y.
(5 ) Tokyo, bristlin g with defenses, would be the first
targe t.
In making this darin<Y decision , General LeMa y was not
motivated imply b y the des ire to get better performance
f rom his crews and ai rcraft. ~r we re these operations con·
ceived as te rror raids again t Japan 's civilian population.
The Japane e economy de pended heavil y on home industries
carried on in citi es c lose to major fa ctor y areas. By de·
stroying these feeder indu stries, the flow of vital parts could
be curtailed and production diso rganized. A general con ·
78
Great Becisiol'
fla g ration in a cit y like Tok yo or Nagoya mig ht have the
furth e r advantage of s preadin <Y to ome of the priority tar·
ge ts loca ted in those area, makin g it unn ecessa ry to knock
th em out by separate pinpoint atta ck.
In cendiary o perations were not new. Several trial had
been made. On ome allacks a mixed load of HE and in·
cendiary bomb ' ha d been used with indifferent res ults. On
three mi ss ions prior to 9 March in cendiaries alone were used .
According to the Phase Analysis report. from which mu ch
of th e fo rego in g data wa assembled. these results, too, were
indiffe rent. Thi was partl y becau e th e balli tic characte r·
is ti cs o f in ce ndiar y c1u , te rs rende red them inaccurate when
dropped from hi g h altitudes in stron g wind. partly becau e
not eno ugh B·29s had been available for a major strike
again ' t a big urban a rea . But by the s ta rt o f March th e
3 13th Win g had joined th e 73 rd ~" in g as a full y operative
unit. and tw o g roups from the ~ ] 4 th. recentl y arrived on
Guam. were read y for action. Thu s. th e co mbin ed force now
totall ed more than 300 aircraft-enou<Yh to strike a spark.
On e main advantage in lowe rin g th e altitude to between
5 .000 and 10.000 feet was th e in c reased bomb load. A in g le
13·29 fl yin g in formation at hi gh altitud e could ca rr y only 35
pe r cent of th e po ibl e bomb load of a B·29 attacking indi o
viduall y at th e lower altitude. This was mad e poss ibl e. of
co urse. becau se individual attacks required no assembly over
the base at the miss ion 's tart or reasse mbl y on route to th e
targe t. Aircraft would go directl y from ba e to targe t and
return , thus sav in <Y gas a nd allowing a g rea te r bomb load.
Better wea th e r would be enco unte red at th e lower altitude.
and the heav y, gas·co n ' umin g winds of hi gh altitudes would
be avoided. Th e we ig ht o[ ex tra c rew members, armamont
a nd ammunition would go into bombs . With the largest
bomb load ca rri ed to date to Japan , each B·29 would bear
six to eight ton s, large ly th e new M·69 fire bomb, composed
of an in cendia ry c lu te r co ntainin g a je ll y·ga oline co m"
pound. It was felt th a t th e weakne s of Jap ni ght fi g hters
justifi ed th e e limination o f armament.
Time 1\ as a c ru cial e le men t in th e new plan.
Jap ni g ht fi g hte rs were kn ow n to be weak, but flak lo oses
were ex pected to be ubstantial. By makin g a ni ght·time
a ttack it wa hoped to minimize these losses, sin ee enem y
radar g un· la yin g devices were thou ght to be co mparative ly
inefTi c ient. and heavy AA guns would thu have to depend 011
searchli ghts for e ffe ctive fire co ntrol.
It was found that th e best time for takeo ff was around dusk,
;;0 that th e planes could benefit b y at lea st so me da y li g ht [or
,he ge taway. Thi s brought th em to the targe t just hefore
dawn. and. mo ' L important, enabled th em to make the home·
ward fli ght by dayli ght. thu s avoidin g ni g ht ditchin gs of
baLlle·damaged ai rcraft.
Finall y, these mission s had to be compl eted in time for
the B·29s to coo rdinate the ir effort ' with th e naval strike
at Okinawa (see B·29 Blockade, page 49). Since the first of
the Okinawa operations wa schedul ed for 2 3 March , only a
little more than two weeks were available in which to hit th e
four big targe ts -Tok yo. Nagoya, Osaka, K o be.
Vi ewed in retrospect, it appears that almost eve r ythin g
was in favor of the low·altitude ni ght attacks. Nevertheless.
it took ex traordinar y co u rage to risk 300 unarmed ai rcraft
on a new type of attack directly opposed to the traditional
doctrine of high-altitude precision bombing for which the
8-29s had been expressly designed_ The imagination, the
flexibility of mind, the unwillingness to be bound by estab-
Ii hed precepts once they no lon ger proved applicable to
the situation at hand- these qualities in our Air Forces
leadership contribu ted beyond measure to our victory, and
were indeed our secret weapon.
Probably no mission , excep t the first historic one against
Yawata and Tokyo, was sweated out with more anxiety than
the 9 March strike on Tokyo. This time, in the event of
failure, nobod y cou ld claim that we were pioneering against
an unknown enemy. This time the risk of men and equip-
men t was man y times greater. This time it was later in the
ga me and the need for decisive ai r action was more acute.
On the afternoon of 10 March , when one by one the B-29s
returned to the Marianas, the verdict became known. Pilots
told how Tok yo "ca ught fire like a forest of pine trees."
A few hours later ca me the photographic evidence. Sixteen
and a half square miles of Tokyo had gone up in smoke.
Eighty-five per cent of the target area was destroyed. And
lhi included 16 targets which were numbered for pinpoint
attack. Out of 302 aircraft over the target, 14 were lost-
the largest loss suffered on an y of the five missions.
Less than 36 hours late r the B-29s were off again, to
agoya. Durin g this strike the crews peered down on what
' looked like a giganti c bowling center with all the all eys
LeaOels like this, dropped by B-29s on Japan during last
weeks of war, listed some cities wh ich were slated for attack.
lighted 1I p; each flight had left an alley of flames." But the
sca ttered fires never joined to create a genera l conflagration
and final results were not too good. A total of 1.56 square
miles was destroyed . Nagoya was unfinished business.
Osaka. Kobe. These were next on the timetable. On
13 March more than 300 B-295 destroyed 8.1 square miles
of Osaka, and on 17 March 2.4 square miles of Kobe, in-
cluding 11,000,000 square feet of dock area, were reduced to
cinders. Fifth and last attack in the series was made on the
return trip to Nagoya when again more than 300 B-29s
dropped some 2,000 tons on the city. Over-compensating for
the scattered bombing on the previous attack, the bombs
were dropped in too small an area, and only .65 square
mi les of the city were destroyed. But nobody doubted, least
of all the Japs, that the blitz was a holocaust. In five mis-
sions more than 29 square miles of Japan's chief industrial
ce nters were burned out beneath a rain of bombs that totaled
10,100 tons. By comparison , on the Luftwaffe's greatest fire
raid on London, only 200 ton were dropped. And on the
Eighth AF's record strike on Berlin (3 Feb., 1945) over
1,000 heavy bombers made a 1,000-mile round trip to drop
2,250 tons. During the ten-day blitz, nearly this same ton-
nage was carried on each mission by only 300 B-29s. The
round trip exceeded 3,200 miles.
Our losses to AA and fi ghters were less than 1.3 per
cent of aircraft over the target, and they were soon to drop
even lower. Greatest so urce of alarm to our flyers were the
This tip-off enabled Japs to flee cities, but reminded them of
their helplessness, and confused them as to exact targets.
Continued on next page
79
 This rain of bombs is pOI.l,ring down on one of four small lap cities which were burned out on 16 l uly.
B-2gers continued
terrifi c thermal s, or hot air cu rrents, that rose from the blaz-
ing targets and sent our aircraft into a black hell of smoke
(no losses were ever attributed directly to thermals ) _ One
B-29 co mmand er related what happened over Osaka: " We
headed into a grea t mu hroom of boiling, oily smoke, and
in a few second s were tossed 5,000 fee t into the air. It
wa a jerky, napp y movement. The shock was so violent
that I felt I was losin g consciousness_ 'Thi is it,' I thouaht,
' I can't pull out of it. ' Smoke poured into the ship and
every li ght wa blacked out. It smell ed like sin ged hair, or a
burning dump heap_ Everybody co ughed_ We were tossed
around for eight or ten seconds_ Flak he l mets were torn off
our head _ The ship was filled with fl yin g oxygen bottles,
thermos jug, ear phones_ latrine cans, cigarette lighters,
cans of fruit juice _ We dropped down again with a terribl e
jolt, and in a few more econd pull ed out into the clear_"
Discussin g the morale of the B-2gers after the blitz, one
report aid, " The phenomena I succe s of ou r new tacti cs had
precipitously a lvaged the mora le and fi g htin g spirit of our
80
crews by providin g a deg ree of battle success proportionate
to the effort expended . __ Amazin gly, the number of cases of
fl yin g personnel diso rde rs due to fl yin g, which had in crea ed
tcad il y prior to 9 March fell off sharpl y after ]9 March
1945 _" Cases were reduced from one per cen t of the total
fl yin g pe rsonne l to two -tenths 0/ one per cent, or a total
reduction of 80 pe r cent.
If our c rews were encou raged by th e low losse and good
resu lts of this initial phase, the y trul y hadn 't seen the half
of it yet. More and more B-29s were put on the job_ Tail
guns were rein taIled for minimum protection _ Fighter
escort was avai lable, if needed. In May and June force of
400 planes, and more, were laun ched against the big targets_
By l5 June they were so completely destroyed, that the B-29s
started a new campaign against more than 60 of the small e r
indu trial citie (see Part 6). Lo ses continued to nose dive_
In June the average B-29 loss rate per mi sion was _08 % _ In
Jul y it was .03%_ In August it was _02%. In th e Marianas
a low altitude in ce ndiar y attack on Jaj.>an was co n ide red to
be about the sa fest pastime a man co uld enjo y.
Epilogue: Yawata Becomes Finished Business
ToT om Gore, the sleeping gunner on "No. 1 1" nearing Iwo
Jima in the gray down of 8 August 1945, it would hardly seem
that all the foregoing achievement was designed just to instill
more peace and confidence into his catnap. Even in his dreams
General Arnold was not saying, "Tom, my boy, it was all for
you." Yet, in a sense, it was. He was breathing easier
because some men hod stopped breathing altogether. He
breathed easier because Iwo Jima hod been won, because
while he slept a vast system of air-sea rescue units was already
in operation, because months ago a decision hod been mode
to risk 300 aircraft and 3,000 crew members on a low
altitude attock that hod "salvaged the morale and fighting
spirit of our crews." He was waking up more refreshed,
better able to do his job because of all the planning, the work,
the sacrifices that hod advanced the war thus for. In turn,
other Americans would woke up more refreshed because of
the job that Tom Gore was doing.
This does not imply that war is a benevolent enterprise, or
that the din of bottle is a lullaby for sleepy young formers
from Tennessee. But it is the nature of war that while it
ruthlessly sacrifices some, it does profit others. It is the nature
of the American character, at its best, to put a high price on
the individual. Tom Gore and his kind were not cut out to
be Kamikaze pilots.
Crawling out of the long dark tube of "No. 1 1," he took
his place at the gunner's window. "No.1 1" was soon circling,
in its own appointed sector of space, above the pinpoint
island of Kita Jima. The time was about 0600. Holding a
red Aldis lamp, Gore began to signal to other B-29s that
were showing up at the Assembly Point. The red flashes
A catnap during a long mission i taken by a crew member,
simply identified "No. 1 1" as the lead plane. It was a strange
wearing Mae West, in the long tube that connects pressurized
kind of rendezvous as one by one the B-29s appeared in the
lonely gray light over a sea of thick clouds, orbiting around compartments. Below: Beginning bomb run , pilot switches
a theoretical signpost above the earth's surface. But the on automatic pilot, while bombardier {cen ter } adjusts sights.
signpost existed firmly in every navigator's mind.
Within the hour all planes in the squadron hod assembled,
and "No. 11" led them toward the Reassembly Point above
the island of Kushino Shima where any planes that hod
strayed off would have a second chance to join the squadron .
The distance from Kita to Kushino Shima was about 750
miles. From there the squadron began its 180-mile lop to
the Departure Point on the coast of Kyushu.
Some observers soy that as a crew gets really close to
Japan, they become grimmer, tenser. But on "No. 11" they
simply become busier-at least, outwardly. Flak suits, para-
chutes, Moe Wests, portable dinghys were stropped on.
Oxygen masks were tested. Although they were not neces-
sary in the pressurized comportments, they would be worn
in case the plane was punctured by flak . The two side gun-
ners, Gore and Sgt. Devon Fronk/in, scanned the air for enemy
fighters. Tech. Sergeant J. J. Farrell, the Central Fire Control
gunner, sot up on his revolving pedestal and peered out the
top blister. The toil gunner, Sergeant Kenneth Grumbine, hod
crawled bock to his post. The guns were manned but no
men were at the guns. The gunner's job was to spot the
target through his finder, and by on astoundingly complex
mechanism the gun would be automatically aimed and fired .
Con.tinued on next page
 Once over Japan, the first of the P-47 escort requested
from Okinawa began to appear- It consisted of three groups
of the 301st Fighter Wing based on nearby Ie Shima _ They
ranged far below the 8-29s, waiting to pounce on any Jap
fighters that might rise for the kill. As it happened, no
enemy fighters attacked "No . 11 ," though a few were sighted,
and one was seen to go down in flames. As " No . 11" passed
the IP and neared the target at an altitude of 21,000 ft . two
phosphorus bombs, dropped from a Jap fighter that had
managed to sneak overhead, dangled their woolly white
tentacles a half mile away. Flak was meager, for the target
area by now was obscured by 8 / 10s to 1011 0s cloud. This
meant that the bombardier's job devolved upon the radar
operator, Sergeant " Red" Edwards, who sat in his windowless,
dark room towards the back of the plane and watched the
outlines of Yawata appear in ghostly light upon his scope.
The bomb bay doors were already open. The moment of payoff
was at hand. 8y turning a dial so that two cross hairs inter-
Meal time , aboa rd this B-29, with trays of vegetabl es, was
sected over the target image on his scope, a red-headed boy
fancier than usua l. Genera lly, crews we re given sand wiches,
from Cleveland dropped some 10,000 pounds of explosives on
cans of juice, gum, cand y. They b rou ght th eir own peanuts.
a city in lapan-a city of some 650,000 inhabitants, only a
little smaller than his own hometown . The incendiary clusters
were fuzed to open in mid-air, at 5,000 feet, and sprinkle
their contents over the target area. Mixed with the clusters
were some magnesium bombs, included because of their
"penetration characteristics."

The plane surged upward, relieved of its burden, and

veered to the left to avoid the AA fire that was expected from
the Shimonoseki strait area. From Yawata a column of gray
smoke towered 35,000 feet and mingled with the clouds.

For one crew, the Yawata mission, with its long build-up of
anxiety, passed with anticlimactic ease. To be sure, they were
still more than 1,500 miles from base-gas and engines had
to be sweated out. But the worst was over. If trouble had
come, it would have been sudden and violent. Not coming ,
it seemed so remote as to be almost nonexistent. For a few
hours, now, eleven men, sealed up in their own world, would
enjoy that remoteness which is peculiar to their business. The
future, and part of the past, was hidden by 10 11 0ths clouds.

They did not know that during the takeoff of the 58th
Wing on Tinian, seven hours earlier, two 8-29s had blocked
both runways by a crack up and 96 aircraft were canceled
from the mission; that another 8-29 from the 58th Wing had
ditched after a flak hit and nine men would be rescued; that
a 8-29 from the 313th Wing on the same mission had ditched
at sea after being hit by a Jap fighter and the entire crew
was missing; that another 8-29 from the 313th had crashed
at sea after the takeoff and nine men were missing; that out of
120 planes airborne from their own wing, none were lost; that
32 of their planes had landed at Iwo Jima, mostly on the
return route.

They did not know that 151 P-47 s had escorted their mission
over the target and five had been lost; that 55 to 65 lap
fighters had shown up, evidently on the assumption that the
8-295 would not be escorted, and offered the strongest recent
aerial qpposition encountered in the Kyushu area, that our own
fighters had shot down 13 of the laps, and the 8-29s had
accounted for at least two more; that four of our fighter
pilots had bailed out at sea; that two 8-29s were slightly
singed by phosphorus bombs and 22 others were hit by flak ;
that 1.22 square miles or 21 percent of Yawata had been
destroyed; that the Pacific war would be over in one week.
As " No. 11 " cruised over the green islands of the Inland
sea and out across the Pacific, some of the watchfulness went
out the crew's faces . They all looked younger. They unpacked
sandwiches, cans of pineapple juice, bags of candy, and
" ACK ACK, the chocolate covered nut roll." They opened
up their books and comic magazines: " The Pride of Montana ,"
"The Nazarene ," " Captain Marvel." After functioning together
as a team, each man seemed to withdraw a little into himself.
Bristling with half a million dollars' worth of precision instru-
ments, the gunner's compartment took on the look of a kids'
shack built out of metal scraps and packing boxes, the kind
Familiar pattern of North field, Guam, is a wonderful sight to 8·29s returning after a 3 ,OOO.mile mission .
of place that you find in thousands of American backyards.
This is not a reflection on the courage and maturity that these
same men had shown an hour ago. It is a reminder of
our origins.
It was not hard to imagine with them another man wearing
two stars. His face has been called grim. It is not. But it
bears the stamp of a man with one single purpose; to get a
job done with the greatest possible dispatch at the least
possible cost. He might be in the pilot's seat, giving Captain
Criss a chance to rest, or if he were tired himself, he might
ee lying on the floor . His dignity does not depend upon
posture. True to the legend, which probably irks him, he
would be wreathed in the smoke of a large cigar.
•
 Part 6
8·29 PAYOFF
In Five Months Japan ~s War Economy Was Ruined
Japan's ability to continue the war finally collapsed amid in the case of the aircraft propeller industry, show exactly
the ashes of her burned·out cities. Her industry, blockaded the specific bottlenecks caused by bombing.
and bombed into a shambles, finally could no lon ger support For one picture of what happened to Japanese industry,
a large, modern war machine. This situation was caused by here are some estimates of factory space destroyed by both
the 8·29, which, in the final phase of the war, was the de· area and precision attacks in 12 major war industries, listed
cisive factor. in order of their importance.
The final phase was swift. President Truman's announce· Pre·attack Plant Industrial bldgs.
ment of the surrender came 157 days after the Twentieth Air Industry Area in 'OOOs destroyed or
of sq. ft. badly damaged
Force first cut loose with fire bombing. In those 157 days,
Aircraft . . 140,000 37'7'0
the main strategic air weapon literall y wrecked the enemy Ordnance .......... 110,000 15'7'0
nation. Shipbuilding and repair . 45,000 15'7'0
Oil (including storage) . 150,000 5%
Our intelligence analysts rubbed their hands with antlcl' Electrical equipment .... 40,000 28'7'0
pation when they examined Japanese industry. Here was no Machine ry & finished metal prod . 110,000 33'7'0
dispersed, well·organized system like Germany's. They Metals (ferrv~s and non.ferrous) 150,000 14'7'0
knew that only a few vulnerable target areas had to be Chemicals . . . 130,000 9'7'0
Rubber ........... 30,000 17'7'0
obliterated before Japan would be on the ropes. A study of Textiles 50,000 24'7'0
her cities showed that the wood and plaster buildings were a Mil. and Gen. storage area . 200,000 12'7'0
set·up for area incendiary bombing. Only 10 per cent were All others . .. . . ...... . .. . . 445,000 20'7'0
made of stone, brick, metal or reinforced concrete. Many Industrial damage totaled 288,000,000 square feet. Of
modern factories were hemmed in by solid masses of flimsy industry in the 69 cities blitzed, 27.4 percent was badly
workshops, the very homes of the workers themselves. Peace· damaged. Yet this fails to tell a complete story. Many un·
time conAagrations had been frequent in Japan; this had not damaged factories were of no use because the blockade and
been true of Germany. Water supplies, never adequate, were bombing of supporting industries denied them the necessary
dangerously low for large·scale fire fighting. In addition, materials to fabricate. Likewise, it is impossible to trans·
our experts discounted all talk about Japan's ability to sur· late physical plant damage into specific production loss. On
vive through her Manchurian industry alone. They were the basis of what we learned in Germany, where fire bomb·
convinced that once the heart of the Empire had been gouged in g was much less successful than it was in Japan , the per·
out, she was licked. centage of production loss for six weeks after incendiary
On the basis of these facts, the bombers of the Twentieth missions was sometimes double the percentage of space de·
Air Force went to work. Their success is, if anything, con· stroyed. The Japanese, in contrast to the Nazis, did almost
siderab ly understated here because information is still in· nothing to repair damage. They cleared up rubble inside
comp lete in many instances. The aerial camera cannot peer bombed·out plants, then abandoned them completely. Other
into every remote corner of a country and disclose if this or factors contributing to loss of output were: (1) shortages of
that piece of factory machinery has been dispersed, gone materials; (2) transportation interruptions; (3) lowered
underground, or whether it is scorched, corroded and useless. worker morale; (4) absenteeism; and (5) administrative
Until extensive surveys are made of each bombed area, any disorganization. All these probably added up to an actual
report can at best be only a partial one. It cannot, except percentage of production loss nearly double the percentage
of physical plant damage.
Sample of what B·29 incendiaries did to 69 Japanese cities Important results in some instances are hidden in the
is this night view of burning Toyama on 1 August. Formerly table above. Oil target areas are reported as only five
a big producer of aluminum. the city was 95.6% demolished . percent destroyed. However, due to the fact that most pro·
Continued on next page
85
 B·29 PAYOFF continued
duction was confined to a relatively few modem facilities,
the 315th Wing, by concentrating on 11 of Japan's newest
refineries, reduced over-all oil output by 30 percent in little
more than a month of operations_ Synthetic production
sagged even more sharply with a drop of 44 percent, which
represents an actual loss of some 265,000 barrels_
As in the case of Germany, the first target system of
fundamental importance was the aircraft industry which was
treated to both high explosive and incendiary attacks_
Against this type of target, the fire bombing was even more
effective than had been antici pated. Many large structures
were consumed by flames which gave added dividends _by
ruining machinery that possibly could have been salvaged
if subjected to HE only. Despite our attention to this in-
dustry, Japan still had plenty of planes at war's end so one
might assume that the B-29 effort was a wasted one. It
was not, and for very simple reasons.
On 1 August 1945 Jap monthly production was estimated
at 1,834 combat planes. This figure was 75 percent of their
production for December 1944, before bomb damage became
appreciable. It indicates that by some dispersal, use of
In January 1944, presumably alarmed by the invasion of
Tarawa, Jap intelligence officers began speculating on the
possibility of bombing attacks against Japan. An elaborate
86
excess plant capacity and production in hidden sites (in-
cluding a small number of underground shops), the Japs,
like the Germans, were still able to produce a sizable num-
ber of aircraft despite our prolonged attacks. Also, they had
planned a considerable increase in production.
The Twentieth Air Force expended 45.5 percent of the
15,000 tons it dropped on the aircraft industry against aero-
engine plants. Another 49.5 percent went on airframe as-
sembly plants. This probably denied the JAF between 6,400
and 7,200 planes through July 1945. These, if it had been
po sible to employ them as Kamikazes at Okinawa, might
well have delayed the outcome of the war.
Strangel y enough, a portion of the remaining five per cent
dropped on subsidiary aircraft industries by the Twentieth,
plus extremely successful fire attacks against Osaka and
Shizuoka, would have hurt the Japane e most during the
balance of 1945. The Sumitomo propeller plants at Amaga-
saki, Shizuoka and Osaka, making 70 percent of all the
props used on first-line Jap combat aircraft, suffered 60.5
percent damage, which , together with some damage to the
Japan Musical Instrument Co. propeller plant in Hamma-
int-elligence document showing the enemy estimate of the
scale and direction of such attacks was captured on Okinawa.
The hasic figllre~ containecl in it arr reproduced above.
matsu, curtailed prop output sufficiently to cause a five
months production loss. It is estimated that the resulting
bottlenecks would have forced aircraft production down to
41 percent of its 1 January 1945 rate by November of 1945.
Cumulative effects would have begun to be felt seriously just
at the time our invasion was scheduled. It undoubtedly' was
one of the factors that convinced the Japs that the situation
was hopeless.
Though aircraft continued to be No. 1 priority, other in·
dustries received an ample share of attention. Shipbuilding
had dropped 60 percent by V·J Day, partly due to the fire
bombing of Kobe, Osaka, and Yokohama, but principally
because of steel shortages. Ordnance, a particular pet of
the Twentieth , was cut 40 percent. Iron, steel and coke,
the key heavy industries of war, were down 56 percent
primarily because of the blockade, but also partly due to
bombing. Aluminum output slumped 35 percent. Military
and industrial storage areas also suffered heavily.
Unlike the bombing program for Germany, where trans-
portation rated top priority along with aircraft and oil, we
had not yet reached the stage where it was necessary to
Actual tonnages dropped on Japan underscore the com-
plete Jap failure to forecast the scale of the aerial onslaught
launched by us. They were equally poor at predicting its
concentrate on rail targets. Japan's rail system, incidentally,
like her industry, was far more vulnerable than Germany's.
Not until 14 August, the last mission of the war, did the
29s hit a Jap rail target. Nonetheless, the fire blitzes had
an amazingly potent effect on land transport. Together with
depreciation of already poor rail equi pment, they cut rail·
road traffic to less than half the volume of a year ago. With
coastwise shipping also disrupted, the Japanese were faced
with what was admittedly their worst economic bottleneck.
This was the most important by. product of the incendiary
attacks.
Many lesser industries contributing to the Japanese war
economy also were heavily affected by B-29 bombing. Elec-
tronics equipment production, already insufficient to supply
demands, was down 35 percent. These in turn were badly
needed for repairing bombed-out factories and for retooling
damaged machinery. The little factories of 30 workers or
less, where the Japanese produced components for delivery
to larger assembly plants, took a terrible beating from area
attacks. Just as the experts predicted, they were wiped out
by the thousands in all the big cities.
Continued ·on page 90
direction. They expected 75 percent of the effort from China.
got less than one per cent, apparently had no idea that we
would soon be operating from the Marianas and Okinawa.
87
 Kure, before it go t its arsenal well kicked by pinpointing Battleship Haruna had its stern bl own off by a 4,000·lb.
1 B-29s on 22 Jun e, made heavy armaments for Jap Navy. 2 bomb hit durin g strike. Navy planes sank her on 28 July.

Kure naval arsenal was 70 percent (2,949,690 sq. ft. of rier planes also scored some hits. Intense flak from warships
3
roof area) destroyed or damaged by the 20th AF. Car- in the harbor damaged 59 per cent of attacking Superforts.

88
 P erfect bombing blotted out the two targets, which were
1 Hiro engine and turbine factory {bottom left ) and naval
aircraft plant were precision targets of B-29s on 5 May. 2 sub -sections of the Kure naval arsenal on opposite page.

Production of long-range Jap seaplane Emily collap ed at 71.5 percent destruction (34 of 38 buildings in right-hand
3 Hiro after th r 29~ I!:ot throul!:h . Photo intelligence ~ how ~ plant area hit ). Th e engine factory was over half KO'ed.

89
 Take a good look at the pictures on these two pages. They
tell the story of what the Superforts did to Japan's war-
making capacity more vividly than words.
Much of her war industry was crammed into these five
cities. For example, 40 per cent of all aircraft engine pro-
duction , 25 per cent of all final aircraft a sembly wa at
Nagoya_ Ordnance was somewhat more widely dispersed,
but Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya each contained about 10 per
cent of the total. Tokyo, in addition to being the Empire's
administrative and political nerve-center, teemed with thou -
ands of shack-like workshops, too numerous to be selectecl as
individual targets. Osaka, with its 1940 population of
3,252,240, was second only to Tokyo among the leading in-
dustrial communities of the Far East. It produced arma-
ments, shipping and other tools of war. Yokohama also
ranked high.
Tokyo, 0 aka, Nagoya, Yokohama, and Kobe caught 44.1
per cent of all Twentieth Air Force tonnage. Serious dam-
age to identified industry ranges from 25 per cent in Osaka
to 43 per cent in Nagoya. The aircraft industry within these
cities suffered 50 per cent damage. Ordnance and metal
were lowest at 21 per cent. Kobe's industrial area was 41
per cent obliterated_ So thoroughly gutted were most sec-
tions of the "Big Five" (their burned areas totaled 103.22
sq. mi. ) , that they were no longer considered essential
targets except for occasional pinpoint "policing" attacks.
Once they had taken care of the big fellows, the 29s relent-
lessly went after the Toledos and Bridgeports of Japan. In
all, 69 cities were treated to "burn jobs." On the basis of
Kobe Eight square miles (55.7%) has been eradicated. Red
areas in these photos show sections burned out by the B-29s.
90
available photo coverage, 175 square miles of urban area
were wiped out. Here is what the Tokyo radio announced
on 23 August concerning casualties from air attacks in the
home islands; 260,000 killed; 412,000 injured; 9,200,000
homeless; 2,210,000 houses demolished or burned, and
another 90,000 partially damaged. Though these figures
may not be entirely accurate, they compare favorably with
estimates of our analysts who say that housing for
10,548,000 persons was destroyed. This is 50.3 per cent of
the 1940 population in the 69 cities. Considering that half
the population in the industrial centers was de-housed, the
effect this had upon labor morale and absenteeism must
have been enormous. The completeness of the chaos was
reflected in the breakdown of all administrative controls.
Workers, lacking orders from higher up, were hamstrung.
Wide variations exist in the percentages of pre-attack
industrial area damaged within the 69 cities_ Fukuoka, with
only .6 per cent, Takamatsu with 89.3 per cent represent two
extremes. Damage to residential structures ranges from
9.1 per cent for Nishinomiya to 98.2 per cent for Toyama.
Impressive as these figures are, again they fail to tell the
whole story. The " planned target area" was much smaller
than the built-up urban area in nearly every case. Thus,
after the last great fire mission to Tokyo on 25 May, some
86 per cent of the " planned target area" had been elimi-
nated. Small wonder that a newspaperman could write,
" Superfortress report of damage in Tokyo were not exagger-
ated; if anything, they constitute the most shocking under-
statement in the history of aerial warfare."
Yokohama War production slumped after "day burn job"
on 29 May. Built-up area has been 57.6 per cent destroyed.
Tokyo Proving ground for AAF's technique of medium- loss of 56.34. square miles (39.9%). Industrial Kawasaki at
altitude night incendiary bombing, the Jap capital suffered a far left had 35.2 per cent devoured by the B-29 fireworks.

Osaka 20th AF ignited conflagrations that consumed 35_1 Nagoya Fire bombs ripped the war industries of this big
per cent (17.64 sq. mi.) of Japan's second industrial city. arsenal to bits. Gutted was 40 per cent of the city proper.

91
 B-29 PAYOFF co",iltlletl

IFIT WE RE U. s.
If th e 69 U. S. cities on th e .
map a t th e right hao heen ballcreo
hy .lap bombers free 10 . trik e an y
lime a no an ywh ere at will in thi s
CO lllltr y, YOll call vivid ly imagin e
the fri ghtful impac t it would ha ve
had upon our mo ral e and wa r
SPOKANE MOIl l3.H •
potentia l. Yet this is precisely
what the B-29s did to Japan . And
hecause of th e ve ry co nstricted
na tu re of that country- 55 pe r KAWASAKI 35 2;
cent of ou r po pu lation squ eezed . 8um TOKUYAMA 483 >;
into a la nd onl y f our per cent our
s ize (approximately th e same a rea
as Mo ntana ) -th e effects were in-
finitely mo re disastrous than they
wou ld have been in o ur case.
Th e co mpari son he re is made on
a bas is of 194,0 census fi gures .
[n each ca e a U. S. city is paired
with a Japanese city (in red ) of
a pproxim a tely the same popula- •
SAl! LA E CITY WAKAYAMA 50 ~
ti on. The percentages (also in
. SACRAM[NIO KOCHI 55.2 -<:
reo ) of Ja pan ese cities destro yed
o r hadl y damaged are the esti- . STOCkION IMABARI63 9';
mates of our inte lligence anal ys ts. .sAN IOS[ SHIMIZU 42 1'1
Th ey show on Iy the results of
pumo UWAltMA 54 2~ •
Twentieth Air Force in cendiary
a nd high ex plosive attacks on th e
huilt-up urban .a reas of Ja pan , ex-
cluding results of one-plane B-29
~ trikes, Nav y, Fifth a nd Seventh
Air Force a ttacks . •
SANTE FE OMURA 33 H
The U. S. cities were chosen SUCH OKAYAMA 68 9~
to give a b road representation
throughout the nati on. No a t-
tempt was mad e to ma tch cities in
le rms of their indu strial impor-
. TUCSON KUWAHA 15 ;
lance. Natural ly, if the .laps had
been abl e to bomb th e heart of our
wa r indu stry, they would have in-
cluded among th eir targets such
places as Detroit, Phil ade lphi a
a nd Pittsburgh.
Tokyo radi o o n 23 Au gust an -
nounced a list of 42 cities whi ch
had suffered over 50 pe r cent loss
of buildin gs by fire to air altack.
The b roadcast named 15 citi es, in-
cludin g Osaka and Nagoya, in
whi ch, accordin g to our estima te-.
less than 50 per cent wa destro yed .
Of the 46 largest Jap cities, 36
we re hit hy R-29 fire bomhin g.

92
 DULUTH MATSUYAMA sc- •
CAM~IDG[
NISHINOMiU Ifg,::.

HARTFORD
HAMAMATSU 603;:
•

lIADISPN NAGAOKA 64
SIIUX fAllS· ISWKI 56.1::C . •KENOSIIA
WATERLOO SAGA 44.2: XUMAGAYA 5~ T ~

•SIOUX CITY UTSUNDMIYA (3)•. •

CHICAGO·
OSAKA 35 .1r.
• A RON NAGASAKI 35 6~

• DA¥ERPOIT WH[[l/NG CHDSHI U 2l'

DES MOIN[S GIFU 69.6:; MIYAZAKI 26.T..
OIlAHA SENDAI 219-;; •
LlNCIInI DKAIAKI 32 21 •
• 494.
PEORIA HIMEII
• SPRIHGfI[lD ICHINOMIYA 563:
• DDlETOWN TSU~UGA 65.1;.;

• SAINT JOSEPH· OIlA 282: RICHMDND •

KAGOSHIMA 63 . -:-
LEXINGTON AKASHI 50.2 ,
• EYAHSVIUE FUKUI BS-;; •
TOPEKA TSU 69 Jh •
•
GREENSBORO lllYAKONOIO 26 5:
KHOXYllli TAKAMATSU 61.5-;; CHARLOTTE YOKKAICHI 33 6-;
• 1/ 4: • •
NASHYILU SASEBO
•
TULSA TOYOHASHI 619:
CHATTANOOGA TOYAMA 95.6U

•
OKUHOMA CITY SHIIUOKA66 TO;
•
LITTlE ROCK HIUCHI 11:
AUGUSTA HOBEOKA 1~ 2'-
MACON FUKUUMA BO 9X

COlUIt.US UIlYAMAOA 413-:..

•
•
IIONTGOItERY AOMORI 30 ~
•
FORT WORTH SAKAI 482 -;

•
WACO NUMAIU 42.3-;

•
SAN ANTONIO YAWm 21.2%

93

ATOM BOMB
Two Jolts Open New Military Vistas
With two shuddering jolts, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the war skidded to a halt. Soldiers the world over, their
jaws agape, began to wonder how the sudden crazy shift of
military values would affect the familiar patterns of conflict.
A few things are clear. The atom bomb will not, at one
blast, wipe out navies or ground armies, as has already
been widely proclaimed. That it will change them almost
beyond recognition is without question . But they will re-
main. Warfare has existed in many forms since men first
banded together to destroy men , but it has always been
waged in all the elements over which man had some control
-or, more correctly, in which he could move freely. For
a long time all battles were on land. Later they were on land
and water. When man began to exercise control over the air,
war moved into the air too. There now remains only "under
the ground." It may be that atomic power will force future
military strategists to fight in that dimension also. But they
will never fight in that, or any dimension, alone.
Since atomic explosives were first used by the Army Air
Forces, and used conventionally (i.e. in the form of a bomb
dropped by conventional methods from a conventional air-
craft), it may seem that air will be less affected than land
or water. This is not so. The single fact that atom bombs
are 2,000 times as powerful as ordinary bombs eventually
will make present-day air forces obsolete. Until now they
have depended largely on size for their ability to crush a city
or an industrial system. In the future a handful of planes will
theoretically do the same job- provided they can get to the
target. The inevitable improvement of antiaircraft defenses
will probably force future bombers to Ay at great heights
and speeds. The aircraft we know cannot Ay as high (even
with the reduced loads made possible by atomic explosives)
or as fast as theory already requires. If improved ground
defenses or air defenses do not demand increased altitude
and speed, improvement in the efficiency of atomic explosives
probably will, to ensure that a bomber is not caught in its
own bomb's blast. All this will mean fundamental changes
in the design of aircraft. These may be so difficult to engineer
(for example, getting adequate lift out of a supersonic air-
Second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 Aug-
ust. Its explosion sent a column of debris and dust, topped by
a cloud of white vapor, boiling to a height of 45,000 feet.
Part 7
foil) , or the destructive capabi lities of future fighters may
be so great that the remote control of weapons resembling
the German V-2 may be resorted to. Naturally, all this will
not occur over night. We will continue to manufacture and
use conventional equi pment for some time. But, it will not
be long before our present air force will seem as curious as
the lumbering triplanes of the last war. In the words of
Britain's Air Chief Marshal Harris, "In World War II the
battleship was the Dodo_ In the next war-if there is one-
the heavy bomber will probably be."
Consider for a moment the simplicity of military organ-
ization and effort required to wreck two large Japanese cities.
The two bombs which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were
dropped by the 509th Composite Group, part of the 313th
Wing of the Twentieth Air Force. It had its own Troop
Carrier Squadron, Ordnance, and Technical Service De-
tachment, nothing else except about a dozen scientists who
arrived in Tinian on 4 July. The Hiroshima mission was
Aown on 5 August. Two planes participated in it, one to
carry the bomb, the other to act as escort. It went off
without a hitch. Bombing was visual. On the second mis-
sion, the same two planes participated, but their roles were
reversed. This time weather caused a great deal of trouble.
According to Major Charles W. Sweeney, pilot of the plane
with the bomb, "The navigator made landfall perfectly.
We passed over the primary target but for some reason it
was obscured by smoke_ There was no flak. We took another
run, almost from the IP. Again smoke hid the target. 'Look
harder,' I said to the bombardier, but it was no use.
"Then I asked Commander Frederick Ashworth (Naval
adviser to the project) to come up for a little conference.
We took a third run with no success. I had another confer-
ence with the commander. We had now been 50 minutes over
the target and might have to drop our bomb in the ocean.
Our gas was getting low-600 gallons were trapped. We
decided to head for Nagasaki, the secondary target. There
we made 90 percent of our run by radar. Only for the
last few seconds was the target clear."
Back at Tinian, crew members claimed that they were no
more worried over dropping atomic bombs than any other
type. Lt. Jacob Beser, the on Iy man to fly on both missions,
went to bed but was roused by his friends to go to a dance.
Three hundred nurses had just arrived at Tinian and all
wanted to dance with him. He had quite an evening.
95
Six stages in atomic test exp losion in New Mexico are
shown above. Start of reaction (first three pictures) is
HIROSHIMA BEFORE " Built on the carpet.Aat
delta of the Ota riyer.
Hiroshima, (pop. 336,485 ) was an ideal target for the bla t
of an atomic bomb. An important army transport base, it
characterized by instantaneous release of an enormous
amount of heat, and light of an unearthly brilliance. Nature
conta in ed large ordnance, food and clothing depots, also a
shipbui ldin g company, several rayon and textile mills. a
railway station oil sto res and an electrical works. It was
Japan 's seventh largest city. Destroyed area is outlined.
of small granular disturbance growing and disappearing in
center of explosion bas not been revealed, may be steel tower

HIROSHIMA AFTER " History's ~rst ato~ bomb

" exploded In the air over
the cen ter of Hiro hima. wiping out 60 percent of the city
in a few seconds. Only the strongest stone and brick build·
ings withstood the withering blast which stripped all leaves
from trees, and turned house, shrine, automobile and citizen
to dust. Factories collapsed, so did bridges. Japs state that
70,000 people were killed, 75,000·200,000 others injured.
AI01 IOIB continued
From near at hand, Hiroshima appears as a toy city . . Center of Hiroshima was obliterated by first atomic bomb.
ruthlessly trampled on. Bridge is same as at bottom of pic- aiming point was bridge fourth from top in center. Same
ture below. Both photos are looking towards the southeast. bridge is shown at right in photograph on opposite page. •
Lije goes on in ramshackle shanties built out oj Nagasaki's rubble.
Mitsubishi sleel works (a lso shown , top opposite) was gutted by second atomic
homb which proved to be even more destructive than the first one at Hiroshima.

FINALE
With or without Atom Bomb~
Although some Japanese have been trying to sell the
world on the idea that it was the atomic bomb and Soviet
war declaration which forced them to surrender, there is
now abundant evidence to the contrary, much of it from the
lips of high-ranking and informed Japanese themselves_ The
following testimony tells with stunning emphasis that Japan
was utterly finished as a war-making nation before the first
atom bomb was dropped_
The most interesting and most complete statement comes
from Prince Higashi-Kuni, speaking before the Japanese
Diet on 5 September : "Following the withdrawal from
Guadalcanal, the war situation began to develop not always
in our favor. Especially after the loss of the Marianas
islands the advance of the Allied forces became progressively
rapid while the enemy's air raids on Japan proper were in-
tensified, causing disa trous damage that mounted daily_
" Production of military supp lies, which had been seri-
ously affected by curtailment of our marine transportation
facilities, was dealt a severe blow by this turn of the war
situation, and almost insuperable difficulties began to multi-
ply, beginning with the spring of this year __ . With the
loss of Okinawa and the consequent increase in the striking
power of the enemy's air forces, even communications with
the China continent were rendered extremely hazardous ...
As regards railway transport, frequent air raids, together
with depreciation of rolling stock and equipment, brought
about a steady lowering of its capacity and a tendency to
lose unified control ... Moreover, various industries suffered
directly from air raids which caused huge damage to plants
and lowered the efficiency of workmen. Finally the country's
production dwindled to such a point that any swift restora-
tion of it came to be considered beyond hope." On 14 Sep-
tember, Higashi-Kuni further said, "The Japanese people
are now completely exhausted." He estimated that there
were 15,000,000 unemployed in the home islands, and called
the Superfortress attacks the turning point in the war.
Rear Admiral Toshitane Takata, ex-Deputy Chief of Staff of
the Japanese Combined Fleet, also saluted the B-29: "Super-
fortresses were the greatest single factor in forcing Japan's
Musashino aircraft engine plant in outskirts of Tokyo
was wrecked principally by HE precision strikes. At peak
of production it was making 2,800 radial engines a month_
Part 8
Japan Was Through
surrender. These planes burned out Japan's principal cities,
reduced military production by fully 50 percent and affected
the genera l livelihood of the Japanese people."
On the sudden cessation of enemy air activity after the
end of the Okinawa campaign, General Kawabe, Command-
ing the Japanese Army Air Forces, had the following to
say: " It was to combat invasion that we hoarded all our
aircraft [5,000-plus planes remained operable at war's
end], refused al l challenge to fight the Third Fleet, the
city-destroying Superfortresses, and the hard-hitting FEAF
which was blasting targets on Kyushu during the last six
weeks of the war. But whi le we waited, the air war was
carried to such extremes of destruction , including use of the
atomic bomb, that the Emperor decided to capitulate on the
basis of the Potsdam Declaration." When questioned about
Kamikaze, Kawabe replied, "We had to do it that way. We
had no other way to use our pilots_"
One of Tokyo's district fire marshals, when interviewed
by an IMPACT editor, stated : "After the first big incendiary
attack I realized that our system of fire prevention was
utterly helpless in stemming attacks of such magnitude."
Among industrialists, war manufacturer Chickuhei Naka-
jima stated that Japan had been so wrecked by bombardment
that it would take from two to five years for her to get back
on her feet, but only if trade with the U. S. was resumed
instantly. If not, "even the bare essentials of life cannot be
produced."
In the following weeks, more of the same, in greater
detail , will be forthcoming as our interrogation crews com-
plete their work. But this further testimony will only reiter-
ate what we already know-that blockade and mass bombing
have demolished Japan. The effects of this double attack
piled up so fast in the closing days of the war that many
Japs, especially troops overseas, were not even aware of the
imminence of catastrophe. The following statements, by
three POWs taken shortly before the end and speaking in
all sincerity, illustrate this point: "Bombing will have no
effect on the people except to instill greater hatred toward
the Allies." " Japanese resistance will become stronger as the
bombings increase." "Bombing alone will not bring about
capitulation _" The Tokyo radio station which put out a
large part of the misinformation on which such remarks
were based is Station JOAK.
103
Hyuga, one of two 30,OOO-ton battleships modernized by . . Tokuyama naval fueling station was the aIde t and ec-
the Japs in 1937, now lie wallowing in the mud of Kure and largest used by the Jap navy. Both it and an adjacent
aval Base, riddled from incessant carrier plane strikes. synthetic oil plant were razed by B-29 HE attack . •
Mitsuhishi airframe plant in Nagoya was hit by . . Mitsuhishi al e engine plant, also in Nagoya, was hit
the B-29s three times _ After th e last an incendiary attack seven times, fini shed the war onl y six percent intact It for-
by the 314th Wing, it was nearl y 70 percent destro yed. merl y produced 40 percent of all Jap combat al c engines_ •
 The Mitsubishi aircraft complex was one of the largest in the
3-ACRE MITSUBISHI SKELETON world. It included the engine plant shown above and at

106
bottom of previous page, al so the airframe plant shown at and assembled a fifth of all Japan's combat aircraft. Both
top of previou s page. The latter was bigger than WiJlow Run factories were burned to cinders by B·29 incendiary attack.

107
Musashino aircraft plant (also shown on page 102) was most bombed and most missed of all Japanese targets.
Musashino was divided into two part. Part sho wn below, Musashino East, the destroyed half, was standard saw-
t
built of reinforced concrete, was relatively undamaged. tooth affair. Crater below was made by one 4,OOO-pounder. I
t
Pinned down by American air power, lap planes on Atsugi were squashed by collapse of wooden hangar.

ATSUGI AIRFIELD First close look many Ameri·

can got of Japan was when
they landed a t this fighter base 32 miles from Tokyo. It was
r;overed with planes. some of them wrecked, many in good
condition. But th e genera l impression was that the Japs
had a junky. tinn y air force. It seemed as if they had been
trying to fight a Tiffany war with Woolworth merchandise.
Even maintenance was shoddy. typical of Jap fields.

Tunnel entrance leads to one of maze of co rridors which Atsugi's tunnels were used as a vas t sto rage depot for
litera ll y honeycombed ground beneath Atsugi's runways. food. clothes. ammunition, machine tools and a ircraft parts.
of a beaten air force was assembled on Atsugi, including well-ventilated Navy Jacks below.
FINALE rOlltilllletl

Shizuoka, city of 206,200, was 66 per cent destroyed by one fire attack which also got a vital propeller plant.
Hitachi wa one of four sma ll cities fired by B-29s on 20 of its area but charred husks of flimsy houses . Fields or gar-
July, was 78 per cent destroyed . Nothing remains over most dens have prevented spread of fires to factory (upper right).
 Factory at Kutlamatsu was gutted by incendiaries on night of 15-16 July. Only chimneys withstood the fire.

One "home" factory among many thousands exterminated Home owners in Yokohama have been li ving in tin and
in Yokohama shows what fire did to Japs' sweatshop industr y. la th shacks constructed from what the B-29s didn't bum.

,t