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A Citizen Soldier in the Air.Wewak Bee’s NestWewak was one of the Japanese air bases on the north side of New Guinea. "There were always plenty of Jap planes flying out of Wewak," Charlie recalls. The Allies were always concerned about any Japanese ships that might be reinforcing their New Guinea forces, and there were Australian coast watchers who monitored Japanese ships from various hiding places, sometimes assisted by local natives.Some of these Aussie coast watchers had been plantation managers, and they had radios, which they now used to report on Japanese movements. On January 20, 1943, coast watchers had reported a Japanese naval armada off the coast near Wewak. The 321st got a call to send some B-24’s up to Wewak to attempt to locate and bomb these ships, if possible. Charlie’s was one of five or six planes assigned to this mission, led by the squadron C.O., Col. Faulkner, and as he recalls, when they reached the north coast near Wewak, the ships had already moved, and they never found them. |
Charlie recalls, "we had no sooner started searching the area for the ships when we were jumped by a swarm of bees - a large number of Jap Zeros attacked us." Charlie recalls that the Zero was an amazingly maneuverable aircraft, and they would often press their attacks very close to the bombers, twisting and turning between the Liberators in formation. One Zero made a very close pass, slowly rolling his wings nearly vertical to pass between Charlie’s right wingtip and that of the next bomber in formation. There was no Allied fighter escort in those days, so it was up to the gunners to defend the bombers, and they did a good job that day. But the Zeros also got many hits on the bombers. At this point, Charlie’s B-24 was hit, losing its number 2 engine, which refused to feather. Another bomber took worse damage, with two engines hit - it began to lose altitude and drop out of formation.
READ ON
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