TD435P-DT

Reconnaissance Mission by Pilot D Tower

On July 13, 1942, this officer and his crew, Lt. Snider, Sgt. Olsen, Sgt. Johannsen, and Sgt. Nibley, were assigned a reconnaissance flight which included taking photographs of Kavieng and Rabaul harbors and their adjoining aerodromes such as Lakunai and Vunakanau situated around Rabaul Harbor.

Before taking off on the flight, intelligence informed us that a concentration of ships and task force had been reported in Kavieng and Rabaul Harbors, and the pictures we were to take would prove of the utmost value in the success of a bombing attack on those areas.

Inasmuch as we were carrying out this assignment in one airplane and more vulnerable to attack, we planned to maintain altitude of more than 30,000 ft. Taking off at dawn so as not to arrive over the targets the same time as we had the previous day and thus allow the Japs to have a standing pursuit patrol over that area, we proceeded on patrol of the shipping lanes enroute to Kavieng, cloud conditions made it impossible to take photographs, but we were able to observe enemy operations and to our disgust they were able to observe us too, and could easily communicate with Rabaul that a plane was on it’s way. Continuing on our way to Rabal, considered as the strongest Jap held base outside of Truk Island, we knew that we could have to climb plenty high to outwit the Jap pursuits. Having learned from previous flights, we knew what the zero could do.

Just a short distance away from Kavieng, we entered a front and much to our surprise there were icing conditions in the clouds, even though we were only a few miles from the equator. But then down in the tropics strange things happen at times, so we let down under the overcast. After passing under the front we again climbed for altitude and approached Rabaul which was clear and unlimited. Flying over Rabaul we too photographs of the harbor and aerodrome. So far everything had gone according to schedule and we started for home with our loot. Suddenly all gunners who had been very much on the alert, spotted three Jap zero fighters coming up to give us trouble. They passed under us just out of range of our big guns and during that time we were looking for a big cloud, but around us wasn’t the suggestion of a cloud. All we could see was a little cloud many miles in front of us, the three pursuit planes which were now about 3,000 feet ahead of us suddenly made a 180 deg turn and singly approached the nose of our plane. The show was on! One by one, three Jap zeros zoomed over and under us giving us all they had of machine gun fire and cannon shots. There were cannon shell holes in each wing. A bullet had entered the cockpit window and whizzed past the pilot and shattered the glass on the co-pilots window. The bomb bay doors were shot open and the winding manual was also damaged making it impossible to bring up the bomb bay doors. The starboard outboard motor was shot away which made feathering it out of the question. About this time our nose gunner got on Jap zero a fatal shot as he swung over us and we watched him dive for the sea. Meanwhile we were approaching the cloud we had spotted when we were attacked. We entered it which was the prettiest one we had ever seen! Our encounter with three planes had lasted 40 minutes and we had a breathing spell now to laugh over an incident that had occurred when an explosive bullet had entered the cockpit window. Just as the bullet exploded the co-pilot suddenly fell over into the pilots lap. The pilot’s first thought was that it had gotten his co-pilot but after a couple seconds the co-pilot sat up and upon being questioned why he had done this he said, “Oh, I was just dodging the bullets.”

But now we had serious trouble on our hands with one engine gone and the bomb bay doors making a drag. We proceeded on our course toward home base and because of our damaged plane and propelling engine we were unable to maintain our altitude. We knew we had to cross over the Own Stanley range which has mountain peaks more than 14,000 feet high. We also knew that there was a pass through the range and so headed for that pass flying just above the overcast. There were large cumulus clouds covering the mountain peaks . We hit a down draft which pulled us into the overcast. We called the pilot shouting, “please get us out of this overcast. There are 14,000 ft peaks in here and we were at only 10,000 ft. The pilot gave the plane all the throttle it could withstand in its condition and at almost a stalling speed pulled it up above the overcast.

Half an hour later the overcast broke up and we sighted Port Moresby below us. We let down through a hole and landed at the aerodrome with approximately twenty minutes of gas left.