Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [99]
On 24 October, huge “beehive” shells from the battleships’ main armament did more damage to their own gun barrels than to American planes, but pilots were shaken by the spectacle. “It’s nerve-racking,” said one, “because you see the guns on the ships go off. And then you wonder what in hell you are going to do for the next ten or fifteen seconds while the shell gets there.” Amid the erupting black puffballs in the sky, again and again American torpedo-and bomb-carrying aircraft got through unscathed.
The Japanese navy’s Lt. Cmdr. Haruki Iki commanded a squadron of Jill torpedo-bombers, based at Clark Field on Luzon. On the twenty-fourth, entirely ignorant of Shogo, they were ordered to launch a “maximum effort” mission in search of the American carriers. They could carry sufficient fuel only to reach Third Fleet. Early afternoon found Iki leading his formation of eighteen aircraft north-east over the sea. They received their first intimation of the desperate drama of the Combined Fleet when they saw far below the battleship Musashi, under American attack. They had scarcely absorbed what was happening when Hellcats fell on them. A massacre followed. As inexperienced pilots strove to jink out of American sights, within a matter of minutes fifteen Japanese planes were shot down. Two aircraft escaped back to Clark. Iki himself found refuge in cloud.
By the time he emerged, sky and sea were empty, his fuel exhausted. He turned south-east and ditched in shallow water a few hundred yards off the north shore of Leyte Island. He and his gunner stood on a wing waving at figures on the beach, who were plainly Japanese. Iki fired flares to attract attention. Eventually, a small boat approached. “We’re navy!” cried Iki. “We’re army,” the occupants of the boat responded dourly. Familiar animosity between the two services asserted itself. The soldiers were alarmed to perceive that the plane’s torpedo had fallen from the fuselage, and lay menacingly on the bottom, a few feet below. They pointed: “Can’t you do something about that thing?” “Like what?” demanded Iki crossly. Eventually the soldiers were persuaded to close in and rescue the airmen. Once ashore, Iki begged the local commander to signal his base, report his survival, and provide him with transport to get back. No message was sent, and it was a week before he reached Clark. He arrived to find that a memorial parade had just been held for himself and the rest of his unit. His commander embraced him, back from the dead. “Somehow, I knew we hadn’t seen the last of you,” said the officer emotionally. With no planes and no crews, there was nothing more for them to do on Luzon. Iki was evacuated to Kyushu to organise a new squadron.
THE JAPANESE PILOT was by no means the only airman to land “in the drink” that day. There was also, for instance, twenty-two-year-old Joseph Tropp from Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, gunner of a flak-stricken Helldiver. As his air group faded away to the east after making its attack on Kurita’s ships, Tropp was left bobbing alone in a dinghy—his pilot had been fatally injured when their plane ditched. He found himself in the path of the entire Japanese fleet. Their battleships did not deign to notice him, but when a destroyer passed within fifty feet “a Jap sailor yelled272 and I could see others pouring out of their hatches talking, gesticulating. They lined up at the rail shaking their fists, yelling and laughing. One of them disappeared and came back with a rifle, and I was sure he intended to strafe me, but I could see and hear them yelling about something else that distracted their attention.” More American aircraft were approaching, and Tropp was left to his own devices. After two days in the dinghy he landed on Samar, met guerrillas who delivered him to the Americans, and eventually returned to his carrier.
Far graver misfortunes now overtook Kurita. Cmdr. James McCauley, directing Third Fleet’s torpedo-bombers, divided his planes between the three biggest Japanese ships. Musashi was struck nineteen times by torpedoes, seventeen times by bombs.