America's Few: Marine Aces of the South Pacific by Bill Yenne

Author:Bill Yenne [Yenne, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, History, War, Military, World War II, Military History, Aviation, United States, Illustrated
ISBN: 9781472847485
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2022-01-05T13:00:00+00:00

On August 30, for the fifth time that month, B-24s of the USAAF Thirteenth Air Force headed north to blast the IJNAF base at Kahili. Tasked as part of the escort force, VMF-124 launched its Corsairs from Guadalcanal at 1115hrs, rendezvoused with the bombers and headed north.

As the formation was passing over New Georgia, Ken Walsh felt his supercharger conk out and he started falling behind. Thinking quickly, he dropped out and down, making a fast landing on the advanced field at Munda. Major Jim Neefus, VMF-215’s squadron commander, greeted him as he taxied in from his landing. When Walsh quickly explained the situation and asked to borrow a VMF-215 Corsair, Neefus pointed to several that were fully fueled and armed, and told him to take his pick. Ten minutes later, by Walsh’s reckoning, he was back in the air.

By the time that Walsh caught up with the bomber formation over Bougainville, they were in the midst of their bomb run at Kahili and already under attack by 50 Zeros. The Japanese had caught the two dozen B-2 4s over the target, and had forced them to disperse to an extent that the handful of American fighters could not protect them all.

The battle, which Walsh later described as “the worst I’ve ever been in,” reached a ferocious melee as it tumbled across the sky south of the Shortland Islands 30 miles from Kahili. Walsh watched as a USAAF P-39 went down in flames, as did a USAAF P-40 with three Zeros on its tail. Over the radio, he heard a call from a fellow Corsair aviator that he was going down over Fauro Island, one of the Shortlands. Nearing Vella Lavella moments later, Walsh saw a B-24 trailing smoke.

Walsh tore into a cluster of Zeros, scoring hits on at least four, and perhaps five. Of these, two went down blazing, one of them disintegrating in an explosion.

Just as Walsh spotted Bill Millington and joined up with him, a desperate call came in over the radio that “lots of Zeros [were] raising hell with B-24s off the water.” As Walsh and Millington quickly responded, Walsh got behind two Zeros “that never knew what hit them.” One Zero crashed just off the beach at Vella Lavella, and the other sliced into the water trailing black smoke.

However, Walsh came out of this engagement with the tables turned and four other Zeros on his six, pounding away with 20mm cannon shells. Despite at least one shell exploding inside the engine of the borrowed Corsair, Walsh wrung as much power as he could out of that R-2800 and got away. His oil pressure was heading south just as the cylinder head temperature was at the top limit.

Moments before, he had seen Walt Mayberry of VMF-123 bail out of his Corsair over Ganongga (Ranongga) Island, 20 miles south of Vella Lavella. Luck was not with Mayberry that day, however. He was captured by the Japanese three days later, taken to Rabaul and executed in March 1944.

Conversely, luck rode the Corsair down with Ken Walsh, though it was a bumpy ride.

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