October 17, 1943
Dobodura, New Guinea
In three months of combat, Tommy McGuire proved to be as hard on his aircraft as he was on his peers. The kid from Florida who used to run from bullies and cry in the school bathroom when punched in the nose was dead, replaced by a man who always piled into the middle of a Japanese formation. He had grown reckless, wild, and supremely aggressive at the controls of his P-38s, which is how he ran his personal score to ten in such a short time. There was a cost: at the end of August, he limped out of a fight over Wewak with a burning engine shattered by Japanese cannon fire. He barely made it to Tsili Tsili, where the aircraft was deemed irreparable. He was given a new, precious P-38, which he named Pudgy II. The Japanese quickly drilled it with bullet holes.
At times, he returned to base with an overstressed airframe, having pushed the plane beyond its g-limits. The cost of that extra maneuverability was not trivial. At a time when P-38s were in critically short supply, he often returned from missions with his P-38 suffering from significant structural damage. The aircraft would be down for days as the ground crews replaced cracked spars and bent wings. Once, after being taunted by a Spitfire pilot in Australia, he challenged the Commonwealth pilot to a duel. The two went at it furiously, McGuire throwing his P-38 all over the sky. When he landed, the brand-new aircraft was so badly damaged from overstressing that it could not be repaired.
For all his faults on the ground, what ultimately mattered in a fighter squadron was performance in the air. That fall, McGuire’s combat record earned him considerable respect within the 431st. In the air, he was a totally different person. Selfless, always watching out for the men around him, he went to the rescue of fellow pilots and beleaguered bombers several times, ignoring the personal risks in doing so. Yet, even in combat he could annoy. In the heat of the moment, he talked incessantly over the radio, battling the Japanese while babbling at such speed that not only was he hard to understand, but his chatter sometimes stepped over warning calls to check six. That habit did nothing to win his peers over.
On the ground, success in battle made him even less well liked, as he morphed back into a braggart. He’d finally been able to back up his talk, and after a short period of toning down that obnoxiousness over the summer, he’d rebounded with a vengeance. Now he had street cred with the kill flags on the side of his P-38’s nose. He lectured. He needled those around him whom he considered lesser pilots and men. At the same time, he was flying more than almost anyone else in the outfit, and doing more for the pilots than perhaps any other junior officer. Every morning that he was not slated for a combat hop, he’d go down to the flight line and spend the day test-flying repaired birds to make absolutely sure they were in top condition. It was a risky job, and one he did so the other guys wouldn’t run into a life-threatening situation when they took the repaired birds out on missions.
When not flying, McGuire personally boresighted the guns in every plane in the squadron. In fact, he was the only pilot who knew how to do that in the 431st. Usually, this was the ground crew’s job.
Through the end of summer and early October, the 431st flew nonstop combat missions, racking up an incredible tally right along with the rest of the 475th Group. By the time the Rabaul raids started, the group had claimed a hundred and fifty Japanese planes against the loss of ten pilots.
The success came with a cost. The grinding pace, the pressure-cooker atmosphere of a fighter squadron existing on a razor’s edge in the middle of a primeval jungle put the men on edge and shortened tempers. Drama flourished, personality differences grated even more, and the squadron coalesced into a series of close cliques. McGuire didn’t fit anywhere, as usual. It also didn’t help that on those sporadic days when they received their pay, he would quickly bankrupt anyone willing to play poker with him. Again, whispers of his cheating at the game swirled around him.
As his score rose, his press did not. In the wake of mission after mission, Boni and the other chroniclers of the ace race ignored his rise, mentioning him only in passing. His personality on the ground probably had a lot to do with that, and while he didn’t appear to care about the press at all, he had always been the kid eager to draw attention to himself. It was a deeply contradictory part of his personality: an externally validated young man who tended to alienate everyone around him with his behavior. The truth was, he wanted connection. He wanted the comradeship others experienced. He just didn’t know how to connect after a lifetime of outsider status. So on the ground, he pretended not to care, though inside he was devoured by his lack of recognition, baffled by what he could be doing wrong.
Marion Kirby and a couple of other senior pilots rode herd on McGuire, trying to develop him further. Though a stubborn man, McGuire learned everything he could from them. Their mentorship transformed him into a team player in the air.
On the morning of October 17, 1943, McGuire rose early to get working on the squadron’s birds. Pudgy II was down for maintenance, and he wasn’t on the flight schedule that day. At this point, even his work ethic pissed off some of the other pilots. Those not on the day’s roster wanted to sleep in. McGuire made that harder, getting to the line at the crack of dawn to test engines and aircraft.
McGuire was hard at work when radar picked up a confusing number of contacts to the north. Some seemed to be stationary, some seemed headed to Oro Bay. The controllers concluded the Japanese were trying to jam their radar systems with reflective metal chaff, a trick the British developed during their night bombing campaign of Germany.
The radar operators stayed glued to their sets as the controllers sent an alert to Dobo to be ready to scramble at two minutes notice. McGuire saw the duty pilots rushing to their cockpits and realized something big was afoot. When he asked around, word had it another big strike was inbound.
A good plot finally resolved on the scopes that morning just before ten. The radar guys estimated perhaps thirty-five to forty Japanese planes, altitude unknown. The controller scrambled all available aircraft.
Marion Kirby led the squadron that day, as General Wurtsmith had summoned Major Nichols to V Fighter Command headquarters. As a perk of rank, Nichols kept his own P-38 and gave standing orders that nobody else was to fly it. McGuire glanced along the flight line and saw it was the only unoccupied bird. He rushed over to it, shouting to the crew chief, “Get Major Nichols’s plane ready!”
The NCO objected, reminding Tommy of the commander’s standing order. Tommy told him he’d take full responsibility. The Japanese were inbound, and every plane was needed in the fight. He sped aloft to join the other P-38s, already climbing over the field, taking over as a flight leader when he caught up to them.
Kirby followed the ground controller’s directions and stayed over the field at first. The 431st would cover Dobodura and backstop other squadrons, including the Knights, as they went directly for the Japanese raid. Soon word came to turn north and go hunting. Apparently, there were a lot of Japanese.
The 431st sped toward the contact, leveling off at twenty-three thousand feet. Normally, this would be more than high enough, as the Japanese tended to fly below twenty. Not this morning. A cry of alarm sounded over the radio.
“Bandits! Eleven o’clock high!”
Nearly twenty Zeroes resolved ahead of the Americans. Before they could react, the Japanese dove after them. The Americans dropped their tanks and banked into the Japanese attack. They were at a terrible disadvantage. Slow from their most economical cruise speed, they went to full power but were forced to climb to get their guns on the Japanese.
The two formations merged, guns belching flames, tracers lacing the sky. Tommy hit a Zero on that first pass, turned, and dove to finish him off. As he did, his wingman broke out of the fight, unable to shake one of his fuel tanks loose. He couldn’t climb above the action, so he power-dived out of it.
At eighteen thousand feet, McGuire gave up pursuit of the Zero he’d damaged and zoomed for altitude. He was alone now, his second element somewhere in the sprawling furball above him. Tommy looked for any friendly P-38s to join, and spotted Kirby’s quartet still together, working to keep each other alive. He sped for them, intending to link up, when two Zeroes dove on Kirby’s men from behind and off to the right.
Still climbing, bleeding speed off as he went, McGuire banked hard and went after the attacking Zeroes, spraying enough lead that both abandoned their gunnery runs on the other P-38s.
The move to save Kirby’s flight cost him dearly. Before he could extend away and gain critical speed, four more Zeroes dropped on him from dead astern. With position and speed, the Japanese had McGuire cold. He couldn’t turn, couldn’t climb. All he could do was roll into the steepest dive he dared, running the P-38 to the edge of compressibility. The controls grew stiff as he plunged downward at ever increasing speed. The Zeroes refused to give up the chase. They hung in there after him even as he began to pull away, hoping he’d run out of altitude before he could get completely clear of them.
Oro Bay’s blue-gray water lay ahead. McGuire pulled the yoke back, gradually forcing the Lightning’s nose up until he finally came out of the dive at a thousand feet. The Zeroes now lay far behind.
With the fight twenty thousand feet over his head, stray Zeroes lurking between him and the battle, most pilots would have called it a day and turned for home. But McGuire refused to cut and run. Instead, he traded the enormous speed he’d built up in the power dive for altitude, zoom-climbing back into the fight.
At eighteen thousand feet, he ran into three more Zeroes. He made several passes, but missed. As he came around again, three more dove on him, and his borrowed P-38 shuddered from bullet strikes. A machine gun round punctured the cockpit and ricocheted around him. He dove away, but one of the Zero pilots hung with him long enough to hit him again. Another bullet cracked past him into the cockpit. The Zero was close, blazing away at him. He dove almost vertically and, pushing the Lightning beyond its engineering limits, risked compressibility again.
At seven thousand feet, he looked back and saw his tail was clear. He sped on, entering a shallow climb to have another go at the Zeroes. As he passed angels twelve, movement below him drew his eyes. One of his squadron mates was running for his life in a crippled P-38, seven Zeroes on his tail. The closest was almost in firing position. McGuire had no help nearby. The American would die if he didn’t go down and help. Even if he did, the seven-to-one odds did not bode well.
What kind of man risks near-certain death to save a squadron mate who probably dislikes him just like most of the others? There was nobody else around to see him run or fight. McGuire could have saved himself without backlash.
A split-second choice needed to be made. McGuire never hesitated.
He rolled his wings and broke hard down after the Zeroes, ignoring the trailing ones to get after the leader who was the biggest threat to the crippled ’38. It would be a tough shot; he dove at a ninety-degree angle off the Zero’s right wing, closing fast. He opened fire and held the trigger down, hosing the air with tracers and lead. Normally, McGuire used short, controlled bursts. Instead of easing off the trigger, he kept firing as he closed, making instinctive adjustments as he saw his tracers edge toward the Zero.
The Japanese was in firing range now. The cripple was easy meat.
The Zero exploded. McGuire thundered past the flaming debris, bending his P-38 around in an impossibly tight turn to tack onto another Zero. He was going faster than the Zero even with the tight turn, and now he climbed right up its tail. At a hundred feet, he cut loose with cannon and fifties. The lightweight fighter stood no chance. Twenty-millimeter shells exploded along its fuselage and wings. The fifties added to the carnage. One of its fuel tanks erupted, sending a sheet of flame back toward McGuire’s Lightning. The Zero rolled over and went straight into Oro Bay like a comet.
Two kills cleared the Lightning’s tail, but McGuire’s attack was a sacrificial act. By making that turn and putting the remaining Zeroes directly behind him, he’d set the table for the Japanese.
Bullets tore into his P-38. A cannon shell exploded in the radio behind his seat, the blast concussing him and sending shrapnel into his buttocks and hip. He tried to maneuver, but a quick glance behind him revealed a Zero less than thirty yards back, its wings and nose afire as the pilot triggered his guns. A bullet punctured the side of the cockpit, went through McGuire’s wrist, and spanged into the instrument panel with a metallic thud. Another cannon shell exploded behind him, sending shrapnel into his right arm.
The Zero had him. No chance of escape. The Japanese pilot closed for the killing shot at absolute point-blank range.
McGuire tried to dive away as both engines took hits. The right one started to smoke, the left one vomited flames. Time slowed and the scene became surreal. Tommy looked down to see the symmetrical hole in his wrist and his concussed brain briefly marveled at its perfect shape.
He tried to maneuver, pulling the yoke back to exit the dive and throw the Japanese pilot’s aim off. The controls didn’t respond. No chance to save the aircraft; he could only try to save himself now.
Tommy reached up with a wounded arm and released the canopy hatch. The plexiglass piece tore away from the aircraft as he fumbled to unbuckle his shoulder straps. The Lightning passed four hundred miles an hour, flames tailing behind both engines as it dove. He cut the throttles, but he’d be going out against a vicious slipstream anyway. He got the shoulder harness unbuckled and stood up. The wind force hit him like a concrete wall, tearing his goggles off and pinning him to the back of the canopy. Everything went black for an instant as his oxygen mask slammed into his brow, covering his eyes. He clutched at it and pulled it away. The 400-mile-an-hour slipstream struck his face full force now, seeming almost to tear his eyes out of their sockets. Furiously, he tried to get the rest of the way out, but something snagged his chute harness in the cockpit. He was trapped as the P-38 went into death gyrations. Slammed from side to side and thrown repeatedly against the back of the cockpit, he fought to save himself, the engine fires spreading to the wings and booms.
Suddenly, he was free, falling clear of the doomed Lightning. Oro Bay was about five thousand feet below him now. With his wounded wrist, he reached up, grabbed his parachute’s D-ring, and pulled it.
The chute didn’t deploy. Instead, the D-ring came away in his hand, its cable severed by cannon shrapnel. Tumbling and spinning toward the water, with no reserve chute, Tommy groped around for the other half of the cable dangling by his side, praying he could find it before it was too late. He yanked it hard. The chute billowed out over him and opened. He swung once and slammed into the water with such force that it broke ribs.
Many pilots died in the water when their parachutes pulled them under. Getting out of the chute harness quickly was the only way to avert that fate. With bullet- and shrapnel-wounded hands and arms, broken ribs, and black eyes so swollen they were half closed, it must have taken a supreme act of will to get clear of the chute. Somehow, Tommy was able to do it, and then triggered his life vest, which was known as a “Mae West.” One side inflated. The other did not. It was barely enough to keep him afloat.
Then he tried to inflate his life raft. He popped the CO2 canister, heard air hissing, but the thing didn’t inflate. He looked it over, found it full of shrapnel holes. It was useless. He cast it aside, shucked off his Australian boots, and began treading water. A moment later, he realized he was bleeding; the water around him was turning inky red. His mind was occupied with a single thought—the images of pilots he’d seen downed in the oceans and encircled by sharks. He reached back for his life raft, rummaging around until he found the survival kit lashed to its interior side. He pulled it clear, cracked open the shark repellent and yellow dye marker that would help search planes see him on the water. By now, the adrenaline rush that got him through the ordeal began to drain away. His wounds began to ache. The pain grew worse. His concussed head throbbed. He could barely keep his chin above the water. He unstrapped his pistol, let it sink, and pulled off every other piece of gear he could reach. Feebly, now, he began trying to stem his bleeding with direct pressure, fading closer and closer to unconsciousness.
Hands grabbed at him. Dazed, he heard an engine sound as he was pulled out of the water and dragged onto the deck of a Navy PT boat. He lay there as the sailors dressed his wounds, jabbering away at how they’d seen him knock down two Zeroes, then go straight in himself. “Damnedest thing we’ve ever seen,” one kept saying.
Did he save the cripple? Nobody knew.
McGuire was taken back to New Guinea and flown to a hospital at Port Moresby. Major Nichols found him there a short time later, lying in a clean bed, arms and hand covered in bandages. His eyes were shockingly blood-filled and blackened. His face looked like a hell-bound raccoon’s.
When he saw his squadron leader, he apologized at once for losing his aircraft. Nichols was pissed at that and had intended to chew Tommy out for it. But the moment he saw this twenty-three-year-old kid so badly hurt, that anger vanished.
“You know, if you took better care of your aircraft, things like this wouldn’t happen,” Nichols chided lightly. Then added seriously, “To hell with it, I don’t care about the airplane. I’m just happy to see you alive.”
As he listened to Nichols, McGuire felt a sense of comfort long absent. After losing his mother, bouncing from unit to unit as the man nobody wanted to fly with, he’d lived an unsettled, sad life separated by his quick tongue and braggart’s mouth from his squadron mates. Now, despite the pain pushing through the fog of morphine in his IV drip, he felt the warrior’s bond for perhaps the first time since drinking that bottle of Yellowstone with Gerald and Wally. It was a shame it had finally taken root now, when he would probably never see the 431st again. Nichols figured he’d be lucky to even get back in the air. He had a long and difficult convalescence ahead. They both knew that. But as Nichols told him how the squadron learned his fate and self-sacrifice from the PT-boat’s crew, how word was out that Tommy McGuire had taken on the entire Japanese Air Force alone, shooting three more planes down before they got him—well, the ordeal seemed worth it. It was the price of loving his brother warriors.