A Short Story: My Dad's First Month in Combat

Putting myself in my father's shoes, his first month
in combat during WW2 should read something
like this....


General McArthur, in keeping his famous promise, steadily
advanced from one Pacific Island to another, so the HQ of
my unit, the 307th Bombardment Group, the "Long Rangers"
moved with him.

From Midway to Canton Island and Guadalcanal. On to
air fields at New Georgia, Los Negros and finally to my
wartime home, the Wadke Island Aerodrome, just off
the coast of New Guinea. The last 'hop' before the
long promised Big Invasion.

My new airfield was just captured from the japs during
'Operation Straight Line', only 4 nip soldiers survived on
Wadke Island out a force of just 760. Little did anyone know
that several thousand more jap soldiers died in a remote cave
on the island, hiding from the bombers. They hid so well
that 62 years passed before their skeletons were to be found
and properly buried.

Soldiers' bones returned from Papua
The Japan Times: November 10, 2005
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/airfiel...pan-times.html

My first mission was on October 13th,1944 in a new B-24J
named "My Ideal". But it was a shame my best buddy, "Teamer"
got assigned to a different plane.We were replacements
for the 424th Bomber Squadron, which had lost 5 planes, and
their entire crews, in just that one month of October.

The significance of that figure didn't really sink in, until
recalling the 424th squadron consists of only 12 planes
at full strength, 6 or 7 most of the time.

Replacements were sorely needed.

After arriving, Teamer and I naturally wanted to know
...."what went wrong" to cause all those losses.
Five out of twelve planes in one month needs to be
explained. But our pilot, Lt Heille, decided to talk
about what went ...right instead.

"Did you hear about Lt Wheeler?" he replied.

He went on to tell us that during the October 3 strike
against the Balikpapan oil refinery, a 20mm shell exploded
in their cockpit, paralyzing the right leg and arm of the
pilot, Lt Wheeler, and the co-pilot was bleeding so badly
he became barely conscious. With one engine out and
the help of the engineer, they managed to keep flying
for the 6 long hours it took to get back, and somehow
landed safely. In the words of the commander...

"Some crews have it, some crews don't.
This crew had it...in large quantities."

Oct 3 Mission Report
http://www.307bg.net/data/missionrep...cord-424bs.pdf

Lt Wheeler would've been the 6th plane lost in that month.
On the same Oct 3rd mission, Lt Rider's plane was
photographed just after a Kamikaze attack.
The picture made headlines back home.

B-24 shot down "Over the Philippines"
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/avi...nes-31642.html

"So what went wrong" we asked again? Why all the losses?
"They found the Battleship Yamato!" he said.
"That's what went wrong!"

But she wasn't sailing alone, the smaller Battleship Nagato, and
her 16 inch guns, and the Battleships Kongo and Haruna were
with her that day. The bulk of the entire jap navy.

Oct 26 Mission Report
http://www.307bg.net/data/missionrep...353D-424bs.pdf

Yamato
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGy5A...layer_embedded
http://combinedfleet.com/yamato.htm
http://www.307bg.net/data/missionrep..._Jap_Fleet.pdf


On my 3rd mission, on Nov 2nd, it became our turn to look
for the Yamato and friends. We searched for 15 long hours
but with no 'luck'. Turns out the Yamato task force was in
Brunei, for supplies. A month later we searched again, with
the same result.

Looks like I wasn't too concerned with grammar after that
second long search for the jap battleships. My log book
of that mission just read....

"...it would have been suiscide for us".

But on my 4th mission, on Nov 6, we had better luck.
Shot down my first fighter! "Got one for sure" my log book reads.

I was on the right waist gun. We were flying a formation
of 6 B-24's at 12,500 feet in a modified box formation, with
2 P-47 escorts. And 7 hours flight time away from our
airfield, we were attacked by 20 jap fighters.

The Zeke I shot down came in from behind, between
5 and 7 o'clock level. After my burst, it started to smoke
badly, banked right and went into a steep vertical dive.
It was last seen going into the clouds at 4000 feet trailing
thick black smoke. Because of the cloud cover, it was
listed only as a 'probable'.

The jap fighters made 15 or 20 more passes at us, all from
behind. The P-47's shot down two of them, but not before
the #3 engine of the bomber flown by Lt Balovich was damaged.
He stayed in formation as long as he could, then peeled off
and descended to 4000 feet, followed by the 2 P-47's.
Happily, the plane successfully diverted to Leyte.

Nov 6 Mission Report
http://www.307bg.net/data/missionrep..._357-372sq.pdf


That pretty much sums up the first month, only 38 more missions
and 367 hours of flight time, left to go!



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