Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [116]
On August 5, 325 Army planes attacked Tarumizu in southern Kyushu, which intelligence had fingered as a source of rocket-powered “Baka bombs,” fast suicide planes. From high, medium, and low level, 179 bombers and 146 fighters pulverized the place with high-explosive bombs and napalm. Five days later fifty-three Liberators attacked the city of Kurume and, with the aid of a stiff northeast wind, burned down 28 percent of the houses, rendering 20,000 people homeless. That same week low-flying AAF pilots reported Japanese civilians waving white cloths at the uncontested Americans.
At the end, as General Ennis C. Whitehead wrote, “The enemy could decide that enough Nips had been killed or he could commit national suicide.”
Meanwhile, the Marianas got reinforcements. The last wing to join LeMay was the 315th under Brigadier General Frank Armstrong, an old flying school classmate. A founding member of the 8th Air Force, in 1942 he had led the first B-17 mission in Europe, flying with then Major Paul Tibbets.
Armstrong had assumed command of the 315th in Colorado in November 1944. Equipped with the brand-new B-29B, his wing would become the ultimate expression of conventional-bombing Superfortresses. The main distinction was the Eagle radar, optimized for precision targeting rather than navigation. It was externally mounted beneath the fuselage, resembling a small extra wing, but the minor speed loss was more than offset by exceptional accuracy.
Armstrong had put the 315th’s four groups through “one of the most intensive training programs ever undertaken by an air combat unit.” The wing left the States in May, arriving at Guam for the last three months of hostilities.
On the afternoon of June 26, Armstrong led the wing’s first mission. He firewalled his throttles and forty-two seconds later lifted Fluffy-Fuz III (named for his wife and child) off Northwest Field’s active runway. Thirty-seven other B-29s followed him, bound for the Utsube River oil refinery in central Honshu. The plant held the dubious distinction of a number one priority in Japan’s petroleum industry, boasting an oil storage and hydrogenation plant for aviation fuel. It was a precision target—just the kind envisioned for the Eagle radar.
Thirty of the thirty-eight bombers crossed the target in less than twenty-three minutes, sustaining no losses. Post-strike photography showed 30 percent of the facility destroyed or damaged, but that was deemed insufficient. Thirteen days later, on July 9, the 313th returned to Utsube and finished what remained.
Meanwhile, Armstrong’s crews maintained a standard of almost eerie efficiency. On July 6–7, two groups attacked the Maruzen oil refinery near Osaka and left it a smoldering rubble, 95 percent destroyed. LeMay, never easily impressed, was delighted: “This performance is the most successful radar bombing of this command to date.”
Armstrong led the wing’s first five missions, then followed doctor’s orders to recuperate from persistent dysentery. (Repeated doses of “medicinal brandy” did not cure the malady, although they did improve the patient’s morale.) The 315th’s well-trained groups continued without him, leading to one of the most peculiar mission summaries in aviation history. After breaching the dikes surrounding a synthetic oil plant, the photo interpreters concluded, “This target destroyed and sunk.”
In six weeks during July and August, Armstrong’s groups were credited with shutting down what remained of Japan’s oil industry.
Meanwhile, the Army asked Halsey for preventive air attacks on Misawa in northern Honshu, where the Japanese had gathered an unusual number of twin-engine bombers. The presence of parachute units at Misawa led American analysts to conclude that an aerial commando operation was being planned against Okinawa. A similar mission had been mounted in late May, when a Japanese army bomber crash-landed at Yontan Airfield, delivering troops who destroyed nine aircraft and blew up two fuel dumps.
The new Japanese plan was far more ambitious, combining airborne commandos and low-level attack