Air Apaches by Jay Stout

Author:Jay Stout [Stout, Jay A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811768092
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: 2018-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

By the middle of June 1944, Japanese air power in New Guinea was a ghost of what it had once been—George Kenney’s men dominated the Japanese in the sky, virtually at will. Certainly, during the period that followed the seizure of Hollandia, although there was still plenty of war to be fought and lots of dying yet to be done, there seemed to be a lull in the intensity of the action. “It’s not so bad now as it was in the days when we used to shoot up Rabaul and Wewak,” J. R. Jones wrote to Elnora. “It seems odd to fly over Wewak [en route to elsewhere] and not be shot at. With the fall of Hollandia, it rather narrows things down. . . . I’m not too sorry the war has quieted down. Still plenty of work to be done, though.”26

Much of the remaining Japanese air power in New Guinea was pushed to two airfields at the very northwestern tip of the island on the unusually shaped peninsula known as the Bird’s Head, or Vogelkop. One of the airfields, Samate, was situated on the peninsula, while the other, Jefman, was located on an island of the same name, just a couple of miles east of Samate. Destroying the units there would effectively end Japanese air resistance on New Guinea.

The two airfields were out of reach of the units based at Nadzab. Accordingly, the Fifth Air Force ordered both the 345th Bomb Group and its sister group, the 38th, to send aircraft and crews to Hollandia. The aircraft were staged and ready for action against Samate and Jefman on June 15. On the following morning, their bomb bays stuffed with 215-gallon auxiliary fuel tanks and a dozen one-hundred-pound parademolition bombs, twenty-two B-25s of the 38th Bomb Group took off, followed by an equal number of 345th Bomb Group aircraft. The 345th left behind two B-25s that had gotten tangled together in a taxiing accident.

The mission, at a straight-line distance of nearly seven hundred miles, was the longest yet undertaken by B-25s in the Southwest Pacific. The flight to the target was largely uneventful, and the two bomb groups were joined by four squadrons of P-38s at Mios Waar Island, near Biak, at the approximate halfway point. The 38th, leading the 345th, dropped to low level and pressed west until Samate was to the right and behind the formation. Then the line of B-25s made a right turn to the northeast, put Samate on its nose, and readied for the attack.

Approaching the target, the P-38 escort flying above the two bomb groups was engaged by more than two dozen Japanese fighters. The 38th Bomb Group, in two line-abreast formations of eleven aircraft each, dropped their bombs and strafed parked aircraft while knocking down several others that were just lifting from the airstrips. Behind them, the six aircraft of the 501st squadron led the 345th in a line-abreast formation.

A ridge to the south of Samate spoiled the 501st’s bombing run but did not stop it from strafing aircraft and other targets.

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