Fortress Rabaul by Bruce Gamble Read Free Book Online Page B

discovered to his horror that it was gone. Moments later, the parachute obliged him by opening. Tyrell drifted serenely over the plateau south of the caldera and landed unharmed in the branches of a tree. Later, while walking cross-country toward Vunakanau, he came across a group of Lark Force soldiers hunting for “a supposed Japanese parachutist.”
    Hewitt, meanwhile, his knee full of shrapnel and his face covered with hydraulic fluid, steered the damaged Wirraway toward the sanctuary of a cloud. He remained hidden until conditions were clear and then crash-landed at Vunakanau without further difficulty. He would live to fight another day, but the Wirraway was beyond repair.
    In another Wirraway, Sgt. Ronald C. G. Little and his gunner, Sgt. Donald R. Sheppard, endured a similar experience. More than a dozen Zeros attacked them, damaging the tail of their aircraft, but Little managed to duck into a cloud. Each time he tried to poke out of it, however, he was forced to hide again by the swarming Zeros. Eventually he made a dash for Vunakanau and landed safely with no injuries to either crewman.
    Twenty-year-old Sgt. Robert A. Blackman took off from Vunakanau and was last seen “in combat with several Zeros.” But nothing more was heard thereafter from either Blackman or his gunner, Sgt. Stanley E. Woodcroft. Eventually their official status was changed from missing to dead.
    Only one Australian pilot, Sgt. Malcolm G. Milne, landed with an undamaged Wirraway. After taking off from Lakunai with Sgt. Raymond S. Harber in the back seat, Milne headed straight into a cloud. According to the official RAAF history, he played “a grim game of ‘tag’ with a greatly superior force of Zeros,” but they failed to draw him into combat. Eventually the Japanese withdrew to concentrate on stationary targets, and Milne returned to Lakunai without a scratch.
    The fight was over in seven minutes. Selby later observed, “ There was something sickening in that sudden merciless extermination, something inspiring in the cold-blooded heroism of those Wirraway pilots, diving splendidly to what each man must have realized meant certain death.Every incident of that horrible fight had been visible to us, but we were powerless to help.”
    The casualties suffered by 24 Squadron were heavy, if not as absolute as Selby implied. Of the eight Wirraways that participated, one crashed during takeoff, three were shot down in combat, two crash-landed with irreparable damage, one landed with moderate damage, and one came back without engaging in combat. The final toll among the airmen was six dead and five wounded. There is no evidence that any of the attacking Zeros were damaged, making for a completely lopsided massacre.
    That the defenders took off against such an overwhelming force should be considered one of the great sacrifices of the Pacific war—but not a single medal was awarded by the RAAF. Responding in 1946 to an official inquiry about this grievous oversight, the defense ministry stated that no citations could be issued because no enemy planes had been shot down. By that twisted logic, no man who ever jumped on a grenade to save his buddies would deserve a medal either, because his self-sacrifice caused no harm to the enemy.
    AFTER ANNIHILATING the Wirraways, the Japanese concentrated on stationary targets. At Vunakanau, where the 2/22nd Battalion had a few Lewis machine guns for antiaircraft defense, the soldiers had a difficult time compensating for the speed of the enemy planes. This was their first experience with single-engine carrier planes. During previous attacks they had watched as formations of medium bombers and giant seaplanes passed high overhead; but the Aichi dive-bombers and nimble Zeros seemed phenomenally fast as they bombed and strafed from all directions. Among the dozens of bombs that landed on the airdrome, many were duds. Some penetrated up to fifteen feet into the soft earth, and the troops later spent hours digging