October 8, 1944
Biak Island, New Guinea
Gerald Johnson looked over his two old comrades. Bong looked healthy again. The last time he’d seen him, Dick was emaciated, hurting, and combat fatigued. The summer back home had done him good. Tommy McGuire, on the other hand, looked terrible. He’d gone on leave to Sydney after Lindbergh left the 475th, but by this point he’d accumulated so many combat hours that what he really needed was a long rest Stateside. He returned to Biak in time to see his squadron pack up into a cargo ship in preparation for the next great leap forward. He flew little in September, which helped a bit, yet Biak was anything but restful. In fact, it was rugged and disease ridden. Fresh water was in short supply, as was decent food. The Japanese continued to resist in pockets around the island, and occasional night air raids on Mokmer ensured sleep was a rare commodity. Toward the end of the month, malaria caught up with Tommy. For days he endured chills, 105-degree fevers, vomiting, and diarrhea. Most of the men already suffered from dysentery, and the malaria going around piled on the misery. When the fever broke and his delirium ended, McGuire looked wrung out and skeletal.
Still, he was game to fly, especially now that the band was back together. Bong’s reappearance in theater pushed him out of bed and to the flight line. He was six back from Dick’s score. A couple of fights and he knew he’d be able to pull even.
Though they were rivals, Bong and McGuire treated each other cordially and never lost sight that they were on the same side. Gerald was something else to the other two, almost like a neutral party. He was Bong’s former squadron leader, Tommy’s old friend. After all that had happened over the past year since they’d last been together, the truth was they were happy to see each other. The faces in their old units had changed considerably. Most of the pilots of 1943 were long gone—dead, missing, or back home. The few remaining old hands looked as worn out as Tommy. All, except perhaps Wally Jordan, who still commanded the Flying Knights and somehow retained his irascible energy.
McGuire still commanded the 431st Squadron. Johnson returned to the 49th Fighter Group as its deputy commander. George Walker, the CO, was in poor health. He was a capable administrator and ran the group well, but he was in no shape to lead from the tip of the spear on anything but the most important missions. Johnson would be expected to fill that role.
Bong arrived in theater in mid-September, initially assigned to 5th Air Force HQ. Two days before this reunion at Biak, General Whitehead sent him back to V Fighter Command’s operations section. His role in theater and how much combat flying he would be allowed remained an open question.
Though they all had different roles and units, circumstance threw the three aces back together again at Biak. They took advantage of it and flew a combat patrol together that morning, swinging around Biak and south, down to Owi, and back. It was the first of many times they found a way to do this. Later, these missions would be dubbed “Fat Cat Flights” by other fighter pilots in the area.
The short flight whetted their appetites once again. Gerald returned disappointed that they hadn’t encountered any raiding Japanese. But this wasn’t 1943. The few Japanese bombers remaining in New Guinea flew only at night.
As Gerald settled back in, he saw troubling signs everywhere. The 49th had been in continuous action for two years, and while the pilots rotated home, the ground crews did not. These men were burned and leathery from working under the tropical sun for months on end. They’d endured every imaginable disease, accepting that diarrhea was simply a part of life in New Guinea. They sweated and worked without enough tools, spare parts, or even basic facilities. Hangars simply did not exist in theater. They were as exhausted as Tommy, yet the invasion of the Philippines lay just over the horizon.
It was the same way in many of the old-line 5th Air Force units. The New Guinea campaign ground the Japanese Army Air Force to dust, but the cost to the Americans also had been heavy. For a time at the end of the summer, almost half the 345th Bomb Group’s aircrew were deemed non–combat operational and taken off flight duties. Morale dipped throughout the command as the months dragged on with no hope of relief.
Fortunately, the 5th was reinforced by the 13th Air Force, which included several P-38 squadrons and heavy bomber groups equipped with B-24 Liberators. Kenney oversaw both now as the commander of the Far East Air Force (FEAF).
Kenney wanted to use FEAF’s heavy bombers to strike a decisive strategic blow against the Japanese before the invasion of the Philippines. The best targets in range were the former Dutch oil refineries at Balikpapan. The best fuel oil in the Japanese empire was produced there, and Kenney wanted to destroy those refineries in hope of choking off that supply right at a critical juncture in the war. Trouble was, the area was heavily defended by crack interceptor units, and every unescorted B-24 raid to the area had suffered heavy losses.
Thanks to the capture of Morotai, Lindbergh’s fuel technique, and the arrival of a small number of three-hundred-gallon drop tanks, both P-47s and P-38s could just reach Balikpapan and get home, provided they did not stay over the target more than fifteen or twenty minutes.
On October 10, over a hundred B-24s, escorted by Lightnings of the 475th and 49th Fighter Groups, struck the refineries. The Japanese threw dozens of interceptors at the attacking bombers. The P-38 pilots found themselves overwhelmed with targets. Four B-24s went down over the target area. The Lightnings claimed six fighters in return.
Dick and Gerald had both been slated to fly that mission, but a tooth infection knocked the Oregonian off the flight roster. Bong flew as an element leader in the 9th Fighter Squadron instead, as the group commander, George Walker, led the mission. In the crazy melee over Balikpapan, Bong shot down two fighters in quick succession, running his total to thirty.
The news set McGuire off. Bong had been back for only a matter of days, and already he’d pulled even farther ahead. This after a summer of dry holes. McGuire resolved not to be left out, even if his unit wasn’t assigned to these missions. He went to see Gerald and asked him if he could fly on his wing for the next raid. Johnson happily agreed.
On October 14, Dick was back at V Fighter Command headquarters on Owi Island when the Flying Knights lifted off from Mokmer Drome. They refueled at Morotai, then linked up with the bombers bound for Balikpapan again. This time, Wally Jordan led the squadron. George Walker, Gerald, and Tommy flew together with the rest of the Knights. It was like old times.
Twenty miles out of the target area, more than fifty Japanese interceptors bounced the Americans from above and behind. The two aces were part of the last and highest flight, which gave them a grandstand view as dozens of Ki-44s and Ki-43s slashed down through the escorts to tear after the bombers. Simultaneously, some stayed high over the Americans, dropping phosphorus bombs into the B-24 formations.
Johnson pivoted his flight around and climbed for a group of Japanese diving on them. The 9th had just received the newest P-38 variant, the L model, which incorporated hydraulic boost controls. This made the Lightning considerably easier to maneuver, and the increased performance probably surprised the Japanese.
Gerald and Tommy shot their way through a flight of Hayabusas. When they broke clear out the other side, they turned back to see several planes diving on the B-24s. He went after the closest one as it arrowed for a bomber box. The B-24 gunners laced the sky with tracers, but the two Lightning pilots ignored the danger and chased the Hayabusa right through one of the B-24 formations before Gerald finally ran the Japanese plane down and opened fire. His bullets smacked into the Ki-43, riddling the wings and fuselage. The Japanese suddenly kicked his rudder and slewed sideways. His speed bled off and Gerald overshot him. Before the cagey Oscar pilot could exploit the advantage and rake Gerald’s ’38, McGuire finished him off with a perfectly aimed burst. The Ki-43 erupted in flames and dropped out of the sky.
Just as McGuire scored the kill, another Hayabusa zoomed past Gerald’s P-38. It had just finished a diving pass on the bombers, and the pilot probably didn’t see the Lightning. Johnson banked hard and tucked the yoke into his stomach, turning directly behind the diving fighter. He put the gun sight pipper right on the plane’s cowling and pulled the trigger. The cone of firepower pouring from the Lightning’s nose shredded the fuselage. Cannon shells exploded through the cowling, destroying the engine and setting it afire. Smoke billowed back right into Gerald’s canopy. He was so close he could smell the burning oil in his cockpit. A second later, the Oscar exploded.
No time to waste. The fight spilled all around them as the Japanese kept after the bombers. Huge mushroom-shaped plumes of smoke erupted around the B-24s as the strange new Japanese aerial phosphorus bombs detonated. Gerald and Tommy glanced around, searching for the closest target. A Ki-44, running flat-out, whipped by only a few hundred feet below them. McGuire followed as Gerald gave chase, climbing right up the Ki-44’s tail. He held his fire until he was so close he couldn’t possibly miss. No deflection. Less than a football field away. Johnson triggered his guns. Pieces flew off the Ki-44. It slowed. Johnson feared he would overshoot again. He laid on the trigger, hosing the interceptor with his cannon and fifties. The aircraft couldn’t take the fusillade. One minute it was there. The next, it was nothing but a massive fireball that filled the sight from Gerald’s windscreen.
He was too close to avoid it. His P-38 plunged into the roiling flames as chunks of metal pinged off his wings and fuselage. He felt the heat on his face as the cockpit filled with smoke. A second later, he broke through the other side, scorched and dinged up, but otherwise unharmed.
McGuire called out another Ki-44 and rolled after it. Johnson covered his six. Tommy closed and blew it out of the sky, only to have two more bounce them from above and behind. One went after Tommy, the other after Gerald. The P-38s had been maneuvering. They were slower and lower than the diving Ki-44s. Both men knew they were in trouble. They couldn’t turn and clear each other’s tails—there was no time and to bleed speed in a bank would simply play to the Ki-44’s agility. They had only one play: dive clear of the attack. Both pilots opened their throttles and pushed the yokes to the instrument panels. The Lightnings fell out of the sky.
They pulled away from the enemies behind them, but lost each other in the process. McGuire went after another Ki-44, which he chased to three thousand feet before shooting it down. At the same time, Johnson climbed back into the fight, taking high-deflection snap shots at Japanese fighters speeding around him. Finally, low on fuel, he turned for home, linking up with McGuire on the way.
Back at Biak, the aces celebrated their victories. McGuire thought he got four, but one went unwitnessed. Johnson scored two, and Wally Jordan got one plus a probable. The Eskimos, as Gerald Johnson, Tommy McGuire, and Richard Bong had long ago been dubbed, had not flown together in over a year, but they were back with a vengeance. Happily, they gathered beside Gerald’s P-38 and handed a camera to another pilot. The three men took turns throwing their arms around each other and holding up fingers for the number of kills they’d scored.
The celebrating lasted only until McGuire ran into Charles MacDonald, who had just returned from his sixty-day grounding and home leave. When Mac discovered Tommy had been freelancing with another squadron, he put the hammer down and told him never to do that again. He’d learned his lesson from the Lindbergh debacle.
The Balikpapan attacks inflicted heavy damage on the refineries, which the Japanese adeptly repaired. The raids failed to deliver a fatal blow to Japan’s oil supplies as Kenney had hoped. It didn’t matter. By the fall of 1944, the U.S. Navy’s submarine force had ravaged Japan’s tanker fleet. No matter how much oil Balikpapan refined, the Japanese simply did not have any way to get it north to the Home Islands anymore. Japan’s war machine was already starved of oil, the nation existing on its dwindling reserves. Though the end was in sight—there was no way the Empire could survive the American onslaught—the Japanese intended to fight to the bitter end.
For at least three aces, this may have been welcome news. For in Japan’s stubborn refusal to see the writing on the wall, they would have plenty of opportunities to score. The race would soon reach a new fever pitch.