Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [65]
On May 27, the Third Fleet leadership team of William Halsey and John McCain relieved Fifth Fleet’s Spruance and Mitscher. Okinawa was declared secure three weeks later, clearing the fast carriers for more work in the home islands, but by then Japan had nearly ceded its homeland airspace. Carrier pilots claimed 267 shootdowns in May, then merely twenty in June. Some second- and third-cruise aviators had fine-tuned their risk-benefit assessments. Said one double ace, “You began to realize that the war wasn’t going to end any sooner if you chased some Jap inland.”
Nevertheless, America owned Japanese skies that summer, as the B-29s and carrier-based airpower heralded America as an invincible creature of the sea and the sky. But U.S. air supremacy boded ill for the future. Tokyo’s plan was obvious: Japan was hoarding its strength for the coming invasion.
CHAPTER FIVE
Firestorm
THE CLOCK WAS running in February 1945, and Curtis LeMay counted each hour.
Hap Arnold had ordered XXI Bomber Command to support the Navy’s invasion of Okinawa, slated for April 1. That meant the B-29s would be diverted from their primary mission of destroying Japanese industry in order to beat down the Kyushu airfields within range of American ships off Okinawa. Admiral Nimitz’s immense naval forces would draw kamikazes like suicidal bees to nautical honey, and with the invasion beaches barely 400 miles from southern Japan, the threat was obvious.
LeMay was not enthused about the interruption of strategic operations but he saw the practical necessity of the interdiction mission. Therefore, he accelerated his plan to burn Japan to the ground. He could pursue that goal until the end of March.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Marine Corps presented the Army Air Forces with a precious gift that saved lives and aircraft. It was the sulfurous island of Iwo Jima, midway between Guam and Tokyo.
For many bomber crews, Iwo was a godsend. The first B-29 had landed there in early March, low on fuel. A small AAF support unit arrived soon thereafter, anticipating heavy use of the newly won field by homeward-bound bombers. The servicing and repair crews could hardly have known the task they set themselves. On one day in June more than 100 Superfortresses set down on Iwo, and at war’s end the original detachment had grown to nearly 2,000 men.
Correspondent Robert Sherrod interviewed some B-29 crews and found that the Army fliers expressed heartfelt gratitude to the marines. Eventually one pilot landed on Iwo Jima five times in eleven missions. Another said, “Whenever I land on this island, I thank God and the men who fought for it.”
Back in the Marianas, preparations continued for the upcoming blitz against Japanese cities. As with every LeMay enterprise, the bedrock was training. He huddled with his wing commanders and directed them to get their groups proficient in night bombing from unusually low altitudes—as low as 5,000 feet. The tactic ran contrary to AAF doctrine, but Curt LeMay was already known for professional heresy. He had proven that in Europe, where he demonstrated that evasive action in the bomb run only spoiled accuracy and required repeat missions to destroy a target.
LeMay would have preferred to have his four China groups available for the upcoming maximum effort, but the 58th Wing would not arrive until April and May. Therefore, the command’s existing twelve groups practiced forming up and concentrating over a target in minimum time to overwhelm the defenders. LeMay called it “compressibility.” Analyzing the tactical problems, he told his commanders, “We must seek maximum compressibility to confuse and saturate Japanese defenses.” That meant putting as many bombers across the target as possible, not only