8 March 1944
HQ, V Fighter Command, 5th Air Force
Nadzab Airfield No. 1 (East Base), Markam Valley, Papua New Guinea
Thomas Lynch, recently promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, had been back in Theatre for just over a month. He and his one-time wingman and protégé, Dick Bong (now a Captain), were sent back over to New Guinea as “Freelancers” attached to V Fighter Command’s Headquarters from where they were allowed to roam over the entire area going from Airfield to Airfield and spending time with any Group or Squadron with the 5th Air Force.
Lynch was proud of Bong and how naturally he had taken to hunting the skies for Japanese. In the time of his first deployment—with only about 10 months of actual combat—Bong had racked up an impressive 22 confirmed kills; surpassing Lynch’s own 20 kills gained over 18 months.
The hunting was not as rich as it had been the year before. The P-38s of the Fifth AF had quickly gained near total control of the air and the Japanese Army was committing ever dwindling numbers to their efforts in the SWPA. In February, as they were trying out their new role as the 5th Air Force Experts, each had downed only a single Jap—Lynch bagged a Tony on the 10th and Bong one on the 15th. The first week of March had gone better when Lynch and Bong intercepted some Sally bombers on the 3rd, each dropping two, and Lynch had followed that up with a Gwen on the 5th.
Despite the lack of suitable targets Lynch was finding this most recent deployment to be incredibly fulfilling. He and Bong had a natural rapport in the air with Bong’s natural talent perfectly complimenting Lynch’s consummate professionalism. From their time the previous year together they knew how each other operated and the freedom on their new shared role in the Fifth had allowed them every opportunity to explore and perfect the aerobatic ballet of their two-plane hunting party.
Flying with Bong as his constant companion had turned the stresses of combat into nothing more than the pure joy of flying.
It was not only Bong that gave him relief and increased confidence. His new airplane, a P-38H-18-LO, was as much an improvement over his previous ride as his old P-38G was over the F-model which preceded it. The engines and turbos were more powerful but the biggest improvements were in systems automation. Almost every flight-critical function of the airplane had been upgraded, simplified, and where possible automated. No longer did he have to constantly monitor and adjust all the radiators or fight with sticky fuel valves. The P-38 which was such a revelation to him after fighting in Airacobras was now almost perfect.
That airplane, #42-103987, was parked at East Base, the home of the V Fighter Command HQ, northwest of Lae, with Bong’s #42-103993 at the next hardstand—if the packed earth of primitive strip could be called a hardstand. Both planes were unpainted and would gleam in the sun if not for the dust kicked up from coming in on the Marsden mat runway the previous day. Neither airplane bore squadron insignia nor numbers. Only the red spinners and wingtips with the last three digits of their serial numbers on the nose identified them. Lynch’s #987 was un-named. He had been around long enough to know that an airplane was simply another tool—an expensive weapon owned by the United States Army Air Forces—and wanted to avoid romanticizing it regardless what the PR folks wanted. He left that to the other, younger, pilots, such as Bong who had a portrait of his new girl back home painted on his plane’s nose with her name, “Marge,” scrawled next to it.
Now with Bong sitting on 25 victories, only one short of matching Eddie Rickenbacker’s record from the last war, he and his plane were being hounded by the Stars and Stripes and civilian press alike. Between the photographers and the enemy, the quiet boy from Poplar, Wisconsin had remarked that Marge was the most shot-at woman in the Pacific.
The pairing of Bong and Lynch was proving to be something of a dream not just for their effectiveness against the enemy but also for the morale of the men at the front and as a welcome bit of drama for the folks back home. The newspapers were making quite a fuss over the “race” to beat Rickenbacker. A Marine Major in the Solomons, Boyington, had come close—by some accounts reaching 26 kills—but was reported MIA, presumed dead, in January. That left the race between several 5th AF Pilots with the USAAF. When Rickenbacker visited Port Moresby more than a year earlier General Kenney had promised a case of Scotch to whichever 5th AF pilot made 27 first with Bong and Lynch now being the likeliest contenders, followed by the Operations Officer of 431st Fighter Squadron, 475th Fighter Group, Captain Thomas McGuire with 18 victories.
Today, Lynch and Bong were heading out for a patrol and fighter sweep over Aitape Harbor to the northwest. They had some success a few weeks prior operating in that area and were hoping that they could draw a few of the local IJAAF fighters up for a tangle and secure that case of Scotch for Bong.
They would be flying without external tanks so were planning on going directly up the Markham Valley and staying inland on the route to their patrol area, 380 miles away. This was territory with which they were both intimately familiar and the navigation and flight planning was routine. Their new planes could make it to Aitape in about one hour, sixteen minutes, at over 300 miles per hour with a cruise climb to 22,000 feet where Lynch and Bong preferred to operate. Weather and wind permitting, they should be able to make the out-bound leg of the flight entirely on their wing tanks and switch to the Mains as they reach the target area.
“Once we’re out there, how do you feel about slowing down to try to draw them up?” Lynch wanted to be sure he and Bong were both in agreement of their tactics, in detail, before leaving the flight line. The IJAAF fighters in Papua New Guinea were more cautious than those he heard of operating in the Solomans and it was becoming increasingly difficult to draw them up into a fight. Lynch had read in the papers about a Marine squadron the previous year which carried on an on-going goading over the radio with their Japanese counterparts over Rabaul and Bougainville but there was none of that in the SWPA—here, the air-waves were silent and the only conversations between the enemies were telegraphed with lead and steel.
“I’m good with that, Colonel.” Bong considered further, “we may have to drop altitude, too.”
He was right, of course, the Japanese do not like operating above 20,000 feet where their aircraft loose much of the maneuvering advantage over the American Lightnings. It was the same reason Lynch recommended they slow down. Above 250mph, the Lightning held nearly every advantage and when flying both fast and high the little Oscars, Tonys, and Navy Zekes were completely out-classed.
“Ok, so, about 10 minutes out from Aitape we switch to our Main tanks and slow to two-hundred indicated, about two-fifty true, at fourteen thousand feet.” He would prefer flying faster and running in AUTO RICH as soon as they over enemy territory but they needed to keep it slow to draw the enemy up. He looked at his Flight Operation Instruction Chart to gauge what their fuel use would be, “sixteen-hundred R.P.M. at twenty-six inches, for fifty-five gallons per hour total,” he wrote this down quick on his notepad and ran the calculation, “that should give us a two-hour loiter with plenty of fuel for the return flight and five minutes of combat. Total mission time, four hours, thirty-two minutes.”
Lynch looked to Bong as the latter penciled the revised plan into his own notepad. Where the previous year many P-38 pilots would be mounting their rides with non-regulation cut-off pants and short-sleeves to stave off the heat of the tropical sun, the improved ventilation system of the updated airplane allowed Bong and Lynch to dress is standard khaki flight suits. Bong’s was accented by the ever present brown leather straps over his shoulders which secured his holstered Colt pistol under his left arm, under his parachute harness.
“I have it,” Bong repeated the instructions and confirmed they were correct before also covering the standard review of radio settings, call signs, and navigation points. Lynch and Bong were pretty casual with each other outside of operations but once in the air Lynch was adamant they stick to SOP and avoid using anything which may give the enemy identifying information about them especially. For the day, they would simply be “Red One” and “Red Two.”
* * *
The Low Level warning light for his right wing tank flickered a few times, then glowed steady.
“Red Two, Red One, switching to MAIN.”
The flight up the Markham Valley had been un-eventful and the thick jungle of the central lowlands and the Sepik River basin prevented them from seeing any semblance of enemy activity. The expanse of the Bismarck Sea was on the horizon to their north and the coast was coming up fast as Lynch turned his fuel selector from LE to MAIN and the warning light flicked out. As planned and without any prompting he nosed #987 down and pulled back his throttles and speed making for their agreed 200 IAS at 14,000 feet. Bong copied his call and stayed on his wing as they descended.
Lynch led the two-plane element to the east of Aitape where there was a good sized airstrip cut out of the jungle by the Japanese. They were still too high for small arms fire and the Japanese garrison on the airstrip did not reveal their A/A locations by firing up at the two lonely intruders. Flying around the strip a few times, he was unable to positively identify any of the well-camouflaged enemy aircraft in the trees and brush—if they were even there—so he changed course up to the coast to Aitape Harbor.
In the few minutes it took them to pass over Aitape they continued to see no signs of enemy aircraft or even anti-aircraft fire. Most of the Japanese forces were farther down the coast where they were fighting tooth-and-nail to stop the joint American/Australian offensives against Saidor and Madang. The Japanese were being fed by materiel coming in from Wewak and to a lesser extent Aitape which is why the 5th AF was having such success to the rear of the ground fighting.
“Red One, Red Two, six luggers in the harbor.”
Lynch looked in front of his wing and saw the six squat Japanese boats, two on the docks, one ashore and three aweigh in the harbor. They were the typical open landing barges that the Japs had been using as launches and to transport materiel up and down the coast. Still holding at 16,000 feet, he and Bong were no threat to the barges so the boats remained in place for the moment.
“Roger, Red Two. Let’s mark them and carry on.” They still had plenty of fuel for their patrol so there was no reason to abandon it for a few barges. If he and Bong did not find any other targets before then end of their patrol, Lynch knew they could always come back and take care of the little boats then.
He turned Bong east, putzing down the coast at 250 mph toward Wewak.
For forty minutes the two Lightnings continued zigging and zagging from just west of Wewak (out of range of the A/A), past the airstrip at Tadji, and around Aitape. They wanted to linger long enough for the enemy to grow weary of them and come up so Lynch led Bong through seemingly random changes of speed and altitude. Lynch continued to be impressed by the new P-38 and how it cruised so efficiently, allowing them plenty of time to linger over the area. In a lesser plane he and Bong would likely have already abandoned their patrol long ago and gone after the barges but the extra endurance of the P-38H gave them more time to press their options.
“Red One, Red Two. Two bogies, ten o’clock low.”
Lynch looked to see two small shapes in the distance, climbing in the opposite direction, still too far away to identify but definitely single-engine aircraft too small to be P-47s and too far out to be P-40s. “Roger, Red Two. Let’s move to intercept.”
The P-38s made a leisurely left turn and accelerated into a slight climb to gain additional altitude on what were most likely enemy aircraft. Lynch kept his mixtures in AUTO-LEAN and kept power in cruise, but increased speed to 2200 RPM and inched his throttles up to 34 inches. His P-38 handled the climb in stride, drifting up to 18,000 feet and passing 300 MPH True Airspeed as he and Bong closed in on the two bogies.
When they were about two miles away he was able to identify them and radioed to Bong, “Red Two, Red One, two Tonys, twelve-o’clock low, two-miles.” He considered for moment how best to set up the attack and, thinking about Kenney’s case of Scotch, he keyed his mic again and said, “Set for combat and take the lead.”
Lynch pulled his throttles back a bit, allowing Bong to slide past him, before moving to AUTO-RICH and pushing his speed to 3000 RPM. The drone of the two Allison engines crescendoed, the exhaust waste gates nearly wide open to hold the manifold pressure under the low throttle, high speed setting.
They were less than a mile out when Bong started to pull away forcing Lynch to follow suit and increase throttle to keep pace. The once roaring engines became quieter as the waste-gates closed, replaced instead with the airy whistle of the big B-33 turbos as their revs climbed. The narrow Electric propellers pitched out to bite more air and #987 accelerated behind Marge. Bong was setting them up for a perfect boom-and-zoom from the Japs’ six-high.
The Tonys’ wings dipped as they leveled off two-thousand feet below the hunting Americans and started a left turn. Moments later the two Japanese planes rolled out and pulled a tight reversing turn to point at Lynch and Bong.
Bong nosed Marge over to dive at the Japs.
Lynch held off for a second longer to permit Bong to pull away and open some space between them before he too pushed his throttle up and eased his yoke forward to pitch his Lightning into a screaming dive at the enemy. He was there to support Bong and decided he would only shoot to drive the enemy to Bong or if Bong needed the assistance. Even so, he adjusted the rheostat on his gunsight so the pip was nice and bright against the tropical sky and lined up 400 yards off Bong’s 5-o’Clock.
When Marge was about 1000 yards away from the enemy the lead Tony abruptly flicked left and dropped its nose level into a tight left turn. Bong was too experienced to fall for the bait and instead held his dive, shifting his focus to the second Tony. Only a second later that Tony also snap-rolled, a little slower than the first, but to the right. Marge’s rudders deflected hard left as Bong tried to skid the fast-diving Lightning and bring its nose over the Tony but the closing speeds were too high and the enemy was already outside his plane of maneuver.
Lynch looked over at the first Tony to his right and saw it was now vertical, having reversed its roll to pitch up into a loop in an effort to come around on top of the diving Lightnings. A glance left showed that the second Tony was once more mirroring the first, both adversaries working in concert to trap Bong and Lynch between them.
There was no need for the radio, Bong and Lynch were both fully aware of their position, the enemies’ disposition, and circumstances. Most importantly, however, was that both knew exactly what needed to be done. Just so, Lynch’s success as a flight leader had instilled in him the importance of constant communication and fully coordinated action. He keyed his mic.
“Dive through.”
Lynch followed Bong straight through the maneuvering Tonys and continued the dive. The P-38’s powerful Allisons, with the turbos pushing 54 inches of manifold pressure, accelerated the planes past 400mph in mere moments. Helped along by the inescapable pull of the Earth below, the two Americans were flashing through the sky too fast for the lithe Japanese to ever dream of catching.
He kept swiveling his head to track the three other planes around him and monitor his own instruments at the same time. The first Tony was coming over the top of its loop, slightly shifted now into a chandelle to as to pull a line behind Lynch at his four-high. The second Tony was slightly later in his maneuver, still vertical but continuing through. Both were falling far behind him as his Airspeed Indicator passed 360 and his altimeter fell past 12,000.
He held the shallow dive for another moment, down to 11,000 feet, while more than three miles behind them and about four thousand feet higher the two Tonys had completed their maneuvers and were in pursuit, rejoining each other with a few hundred yards between them.
“Red Two, Red One, climb up and set up another pass.”
“Red Two, Wilco.”
Bong lifted Marge’s nose out of the shallow dive and into a steep zoom-climb with Lynch following behind, the sudden change in G’s pulling his guts into the seat. Lynch pulled kept his throttles up as he climbed to preserve as much as airspeed as possible even as he exchanged much of it for altitude. The two P-38’s shot almost straight up quickly gaining a few thousand feet as the enemy angled down on them to close the distance. At fourteen thousand feet, Lynch unloaded the airplane to shallow the climb and pulled his throttles back to 46 inches in preparation for the next turn.
“Red Two, Red One. Come left, combat spread. I will take low position on your left.”
“Roger, One. I want some more altitude, climbing to Angels One-Six.” Bong responded using the “Angels” code for altitude in thousands of feet. By climbing up to the Tonys’ altitude, Bong was using their dive to his advantage, hoping that they would take the easy low target of Lynch and allow him to come at them from above.
“Copy, Angels One-Six.”
Bong peeled off to the left in a climbing turn back toward the enemy using the last of his energy from the dive to gain the final few thousand feet and slow down for a better second pass. Lynch matched this with a broad sweeping right-hander, gaining only a few hundred feet altitude but separating his plane from Bong’s. When both had finished their turns they were in a textbook combat spread with Lynch 1,500 feet lower than and slightly ahead of Bong with a good mile or so between their wing-tips.
With the Tonys once more closing head-on, Lynch saw that they had reacted to Bong’s additional climb and were trying to pull up to maintain altitude advantage over him, leaving Lynch alone and un-molested two-thousand feet lower. These Japs were clever.
“Bandits coming to you, Two.”
“Roger.”
Lynch watched Bong shift slightly to compensate for the on-coming Tonys, lining back up for another head-on pass. The three airplanes closed rapidly while Lynch turned into a climbing right-hander in order to gain a lead pursuit on the enemy aircraft after the pass. The Tonys opened fire first, noses and wings flickering at Bong. The smoking trails of their cannon shells crossed in front of and below Marge, falling short in their convergence patterns. Then Bong’s Lightning opened up a one-second burst as he closed within 250 yards of the lead Tony, pouring fire into it for a half-second before the two aircraft passed each other.
The second Tony rolled out of Bong’s line, turning down into a split-S as he passed below the P-38 with the lead Tony continuing straight through, its nose shredded and streaming thick black smoke. Bong brought his P-38 over in a lazy left roll and pitched back to bring his nose around and down toward the enemy.
Lynch was now ahead of Bong in the pursuit of the undamaged Tony. He slid his airplane in front of the enemy’s line and simply waited for it to pass in front of him. The Tony flashed past, nose down, and Lynch sent a short burst out at him. He did not see any strikes as the streamers of his fire filled the sky to the side of the diving Jap. He pulled back on the yoke and kicked left rudder, rolling into a high chandelle to regain view on the enemy over his shoulder.
Behind him, Bong was now coming back at the Tony which was rolling out of its dive into a tight descending turn. Lynch canned both throttles pulled his yoke as far back as it would go, loading the airplane with as many Gs as he could to bring the nose down tightly. His chest tightened from the force of his turn, his heart fluttered and his vision started to go black. His plane gave the tell-tale shudder of a high-speed stall as the outer wings lost lift under the load, dropping #987 from its vertical plane and completing his reversal.
Lynch’s vision returned and his heartbeat steadied when his plane stabilized. He saw the second Tony continuing to dive in a defensive spiral to escape the two Americans but Bong was already anticipating the radius of the turn and was closing in. Lynch kept his nose down and throttled forward to dive down to the enemy in hope of driving it closer to Bong’s guns.
They chased the Tony down, keeping it between them and forcing the Japanese pilot to constantly change direction so as to prevent either American from gaining an angle on him. All three planes spiraling around each with the big P-38s staying on the outside to corral the little Tony in an ever shrinking circle as they whole ballet drifted closer to the coast. At five thousand feet, they were beginning to run out of room and Lynch knew it was time to set up the final move.
“Red Two, break off. Hold Angels Four. I will drive him below you.”
Accordingly, Bong turned out of the spiral and circled wide at four thousand feet just over the coast line. Lynch kicked his rudder to tighten his turn and lead the enemy at a seventy degree deflection. Accelerating up as he rolled level and dropped his nose into a steeper dive as he closed to 300 yards and let off a short burst in front of the Tony’s right side.
Bong sped down from his higher perch, his Lightning screaming through the humid air. The Jap fighter snapped left, away from Lynch’s fire, and directly across Bong’s path. At 400 yards Bong pulled his throttles. At 200 yards he opened up a sustained two-second burst of fire into the Tony.
Flashes and sparks flew from the left wing of the Tony, walking back in a scattered pattern over the rear fuselage and shredding the entire empennage and blasting holes through the stylized eight-petal chrysanthemum emblem which adorned it. The tip of the vertical stabilizer flew off, followed by the rudder and the left elevator. As Marge closed to point-blank on the enemy, Bong’s fire spread back up the fuselage of the airplane. Across the canopy and over its nose, blowing an engine cover loose before Lynch saw a propeller blade come off.
Immediately, the Tony flicked over and nosed down in a completely uncontrolled tumble. Bong and Lynch both pulled out of their dives at less than one-thousand feet and watched the Tony impact fifty feet from shore, cartwheeling into a thousand pieces in the shallow tideway.
“That’ll do him.”
“Copy that, Red Two. Let’s see what happened to his friend.”
Lynch and Bong joined back up, reducing their throttles as they turned back inland. It did not take them long to find the black column of smoke drifting in the wind which marked the first Tony’s decent. They circled the area twice before Bong picked out the fire in the scrub jungle below. Dropping lower for a better look, Lynch confirmed, “Red Two, Red One, that’s the wreckage all right. You got him.”
Lynch looked at his fuel gauges and saw his MAIN tanks were down to about 25 gallons each and his RESERVE tanks held steady at 45 gallons each. He called over the Bong to ask his fuel status.
“Red One, Two, I have five-six gallons mains, nine-two gallons reserve.”
They would need about 100 gallons to get back to East Base at cruise, leaving them just forty or fifty gallons for additional patrol or maneuvers. It was not worth the risk to continue on.
“Red Two, Red One. Let’s head home, those luggers will have to wait another day.”
“Copy, One. Return to base.”
“Make Angels Two-Zero, set for briefed cruise.”
“Copy, One. Angels Two-Zero at briefed cruise.”
Nothing was said about what was on both minds: Bong had just passed Rickenbacker.
