Operation Vengeance: The Astonishing Aerial Ambush That Changed World War II by Dan Hampton

Author:Dan Hampton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-08-10T23:00:00+00:00

Eight

At Any Cost

John Mitchell rolled the elevator trim wheel back with his left hand until he could feel no pressure against the control yoke in his right hand. The big fighter was very stable, and could be trimmed to fly “hands-off” as he did now, which would make the long mission a bit easier, physically at least. Normally this wasn’t an issue; fighter combat hops in the Pacific were usually very short, and trimming a plane up for hands-off flight was an invitation to have your tail shot off. Today was different, however, and arriving over Bougainville exhausted would not suffice. His plan was simple: four inbound legs totaling 412 miles; two hours and five minutes to roar in, hopefully undetected, over Empress Augusta Bay and catch the Japanese by surprise. Mitchell knew from long experience that the real trick was the execution, in making it work, and no one could do that for him.

It was a good plan. Mitchell should know. He created it.

The previous afternoon, April 17, he had been lying on his cot in the 339th Fighter Squadron Ops Tent trying to doze. He’d already flown a morning mission and was on the board for another later in the afternoon, so he was irritated when the tent flap was yanked back and Henry Vicellio stepped in. Mitchell’s former 70th Pursuit Squadron commander was now a lieutenant colonel and officially the acting director of operations for the 13th Air Force Fighter Command. This was largely administrative, but his dual position as commander of Guadalcanal’s newly formed 347th Fighter Group was not. Skinny, like everyone on the Canal, Vicellio had narrow eyes, oddly protruding ears, and a receding hairline.

“Mitch, they want you over at the Opium Den,” he said tersely as John Mitchell later recalled. “They’ve got something for you.”

The Opium Den was a reinforced dugout over on Henderson Field, and the headquarters of the Commander Air, Solomon Islands: Rear Admiral Marc Mitscher. A 1910 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, “Pete” Mitscher was a grizzled, hard-bitten professional. Designated Naval Aviator No. 33 in 1916, he gained early fame by piloting Navy Curtiss Flying Boat One (NC-1) during the first attempt at a fixed-wing, transatlantic crossing in May 1919.*

More than two decades later Mitscher, then a captain, commanded the USS Hornet for the April 1942 Doolittle Raid on Japan, and during the epic Battle of Midway. Soft-spoken, direct, and decisive, he had the overall command for fleet air before Bull Halsey handpicked him in December 1942 to lead the air assets in the Solomons during this most critical time. “I knew we’d probably catch hell from the Japs in the air,” Halsey later recalled; “that’s why I sent Pete Mitscher up there. Pete was a fighting fool and I knew it.”

Mitscher’s command had only been in place since February 1943, after the Japanese on Guadalcanal were killed or evacuated. It was part of a reorganization that was only possible due to the hard-won victories of late 1942, and reflected growing Allied optimism in the South Pacific.

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