History Pgs.67-101
10/9/06
5:58 PM
Page 67
THE MARINES
Strangling Rabaul (1943) Easily a hundred thousand Japanese
Bougainville. In the wild melee that ensued, Walsh shot down four enemy fighters before being forced to crash at sea. Walsh survived, received the Medal of Honor, and returned to the air campaign, eventually claiming twentyone authenticated kills. Lieutenant Robert Hanson became the greatest Corsair ace of the war, achieving twenty-five kills from his F4U in the South Pacific. He shot down twenty Japanese planes in an incredibly brief six days. Hanson’s luck ran out at the end. On the day before his twenty-fourth birthday, and just days before he was due to be rotated back to the States, Hanson lost a duel with antiaircraft batteries at Cape St. George on New Ireland. His Medal of Honor was a posthumous award. Flamboyant and indomitable Major Gregory “Pappy” Boyington was the most widely known Corsair pilot to receive the Medal of Honor. “Pappy” accumulated his Corps-best twenty-eight kills in several different aircraft (he shot down his first six Japanese planes while a volunteer
occupied Rabaul in 1943. MacArthur wanted to conquer Rabaul directly; Halsey had huge doubts. The Joint Chiefs of Staff decided for them: Neutralize and eventually bypass Rabaul in 1943 by a series of low-budget half-steps – working sequentially “up the ladder” of the Solomons and Bismarcks. Doing so would entail a very hazardous year’s work for a still underequipped, understrength Marine amphibious force: a full-scale air war and three major assault landings. Rabaul lay 560 air miles northwest of Guadalcanal. Since the island-studded seas posed a hazard to Halsey’s two carriers, the air war against Rabaul would be waged predominantly by land-based aviation, which meant a significant role for the Marines. Thirty-three squadrons of Marine tactical aircraft would fight in the skies over Rabaul and its protective network. Their principal mission: defeat of the formidable Imperial Naval Air Force.
Marine night fighters made their debut in the South Pacific in 1943, early pioneers of a tactic which would grow in value as technology improved. Marine Brigadier General Francis “Pat” Mulcahy, one of the few Leatherneck aviators to shoot down a German fighter in World War I, commanded the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing. Mulcahy’s immediate concern became the new Japanese airfield built at Munda Point on New Georgia. Munda would have to be seized by a landing force. Concurrently, the savage air war raged unabated. Marine pilots engaged in desperate air-to-air battles each day, making the most of the limited attributes of their F4F Wildcats with “hit and run” tactics against the superbly maneuverable Zeros. Then, on February 12, 1943, the first squadron of USMC F4U Corsair fighters arrived in the theater. The tables were about to be turned in the air war. In the right hands, the Corsair became such an efficient flying and killing machine that a new generation of Marine fighter pilots emerged as legendary aces in the skies surrounding Rabaul. Lieutenant Kenneth Walsh became the first Corsair ace on May 13, 1943, shooting down his fourth, fifth, and sixth Zeros in a hectic morning. Walsh had earned his pilot’s wings in 1937 as a Marine private and proved absolutely fearless in aerial combat. On August 30 he stormed single-handedly into a formation of fifty Zeros attacking USAAF B-24 bombers over
P-40 pilot for the “prewar” Flying Tigers in China), but he attained his greatest renown as skipper of VMF-214, an F4U squadron nicknamed “The Black Sheep.” While colorful Corsair pilots like Walsh, Hanson, and Boyington captured the public’s admiration, Marine divebomber and torpedo bomber pilots played equally critical roles in the sustained air battle for Rabaul. Marine night fighters made their debut in the South Pacific in 1943, early pioneers of a tactic which would grow in value as technology improved. The few night kills came at the hands of extremely brave pilots at outrageously short ranges. Close air support in the jungles of the South Pacific was an imprecise art. To do the job right – and avoid killing friendly ground troops – required reliable communications between an experienced aviation ground party, hunkered at the side of the infantry commander. It was a hell of an investment, taking seasoned pilots out of their beloved cockpits and deploying them with “the grunts,” but the value of having a seasoned dive-bomber pilot on the ground, assessing the target and talking his former cohorts into the attack, could not be beat. The 3d Marine Division at Bougainville
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