PACIFIC THUNDERThe Fifth Air Force had played a key role in the highly successful campaign to secure the north side of the Papuan Peninsula and establish air bases east of Lae, then had crushed the Japanese effort to reinforce Lae during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. General Kenney's P-38 pilots had been writing an impressive resume for their fast, highly-maneuverable Lockheed Lightnings. Outnumbered more than two-to-one by the Japanese less than a year earlier, and supplemented primarily by aging and battle-damaged P-39s and P-40s, Kenney's fighter pilots now ruled the skies over eastern New Guinea. Kenney's Fifth Fighter Command was victorious but badly bruised. In March 1943 General Kenney made his first visit to Washington, D.C., since taking command of the Fifth Air Force less than a year earlier. A key part of this trip, beyond briefing Hap Arnold and the General Staff on the progress in the Pacific, was to plead for replacement pilots and new aircraft. The Fifth Air Force had accomplished what a year earlier was considered impossible, but the toll left the command worn, torn, bleeding, and struggling to keep airplanes in the air. The combat toll had been so extensive it was not unusual for more than half of the aircraft mounted for a mission to be forced to abort, not because of enemy fire, but because of mechanical failure.
Kenney quickly learned that among the top Allied war planners, despite his tremendous success in the Southwest Pacific, defeating the Japanese was a "war on the back burner." Most Allied efforts were focused on defeating the Axis in Europe. This was not a message Kenney wanted to hear, or a decision he would accept. He continued to plead for new pilots and aircraft, and the effort finally paid off. On March 22, less than ten days before Kenney's return to Port Moresby, Hap Arnold called him to his office. He advised the Fifth Air Force commander that he had "squeezed everything dry to give him some help." That help was to come in the form of:
One new heavy bombardment group
Two and a half medium bombardment groups
Three new fighter groups--and, "Oh, one of those groups will have to be a P-47 group. No one else WANTS them."
Desperate for anything, despite all the negatives he had heard about the P-47, and ignoring his own misgivings about the ungainly Jugs, Kenney said he would gladly take ANYTHING Hap chose to send.
Major Kearby 348th FG Commander was taking a badly-needed break from making his squadrons ready for combat in Europe on April 3, two days after George Kenney left Washington to return to his own command. That seven-day leave gave Kearby the opportunity to spend a little time with his children and his beautiful wife Virginia, whom he affectionately called "Ginger." When he returned to work on April 9, it was to find something unusual going on. The 348th Fighter Group was being readied for deployment. Within 30 days the group moved to Camp Shanks, New York, to begin their final preparations before leaving for overseas combat. On May 14 both pilots and planes were boarded on the Army Transport Henry Gibbons. On May 21 the Henry Gibbons passed through the Panama Canal, and the men aboard who were headed for war at last knew what many had begun to suspect, that the 348th Fighter Group with its P-47 Thunderbolts was not headed for Europe. They were, in fact, the group no one else wanted that Hap Arnold had promised General Kenney.The 348th Fighter Group was headed for war in the Pacific with their unwanted, untested, and oft-derided, P-47s Thunderbolts. Lieutenant Colonel Neel Kearby reported for duty with the Fifth Air Force at Brisbane, Australia, on June 20. Meanwhile his ground crews and crated P-47s continued on to their final destination further north at Townsville. General Kenney recalled meeting Kearby for the first time quite well.
"Everyone in the 5th Air Force, from (General) Whitehead and (General) Wurtsmith down, except the kids in the new (348th) group, decided that the P-47 was no good as a combat plane. Besides not having enough gas, the rumors said it took too much runway to get off, it had no maneuverability, it would not pull out of a dive, the landing gear was weak, and the engine was unreliable. I sent for Kearby and told him I expected him to sell the P-47 or go back home. I knew it didn't have enough gas but we would hang some more on somehow and prove it as a combat plane, especially as it was the only fighter that (Hap) Arnold would give me in any quantities for some time. I told Kearby that, regardless of the fact that everyone in the theater was sold on the P-38, if the P-47 could demonstrate just once that it could perform comparably I believed that the 'Jug,' as the kids called it, would be looked upon with more favor."
September 4, 1943
Kearby's Thunderbolts began taking off around two o'clock in the afternoon, Yellow Flight from the 342d Squadron, followed by seven more airplanes of Blue and Green Flights. The last flight of twenty P-47s was led by the Group commander himself.
Half-an-hour later Kearby's formation of four fighters were fourteen miles south of Hopoi Beach, cruising easily at 25,000 feet, when Neel saw what appeared to be two fighters and a flying boat flying close-formation miles below. At that distance it was impossible to identify the bogeys and Kearby knew if he dove, he would lose precious altitude that would be difficult to recover if the dark blips beyond turned out to be American. Kearby noted the signs of bomber damage around Morobe and several fires in the water near Cape Ward Hunt, and decided the possibility that the unidentified airplanes were enemy made it worth the risk. With his wing man trailing, he nosed into a steep dive at more than 400 miles per hour, closing the gap in less than a minute.
At 2,000 feet Kearby and Lieutenant George Orr, his wingman, closed to within three-hundred yards behind and to the left of the three aircraft. The large flying boat in the center was a Betty bomber, protected by a Zero and an Oscar close on each wing. The red orbs of the rising sun confirmed their identity as Japanese.
Adrenaline filled every fiber of the would-be super-ace at the prospect of his first combat. Perhaps it was buck fever, it was doubtless NOT by design, that rather than making a nearly sure-shot at one plane, Neel Kearby unleashing his eight 50-caliber machineguns on two enemy at once. Even before Lieutenant Orr could trigger his own guns, the wing-man watched in amazement as the Betty bomber exploded. One wing ripped away from one of the escorting fighters, causing it to also plunge into the sea below. Kearby knew he had been lucky--his first victory had been a double-punch. Chalk one up for the highly-touted increased firepower of the P-47. There could be no more doubts.
The P-47s zipped past the flaming, falling debris that had been two enemy planes before they could sight on the third fighter. Struggling against the inertia of their diving seven-ton Thunderbolts, Kearby and Orr banked and tried to pursue the now vanishing Oscar. Kearby tried to line up for a third kill, but the Japanese pilot executed a nimble climb, leaving Kearby's sights filled only with blue sky and white clouds.
Nearly thirty enemy aircraft were destroyed on September 4, six by the anti-aircraft guns in the convoy, twenty-one of them by General Kenney's P-38s. Neel Kearby scored the only victories for the 348th squadron. Kearbyy also realized that his over-eagerness had disrupted what could have been a near-perfect attack, one that would have netted all three enemy planes.
The keen tactician mentally noted his mistakes, which could not take away from his celebratory mood upon returning to Ward's Drome. Kearby had demonstrated the soundness of a tactic he had preached to his pilots since they received the first P-47s back in the states. Despite its weight, its clumsiness at low altitudes, and its slow rate of climb, the Thunderbolt could be deadly when tactically deployed. Kearby would leave it to lighter, more nimble fighters to dog-fight at low altitudes. Proper use of the Thunderbolt meant free-roving flights at high altitude, where they were designed to fly, and where they could track enemy formations unseen. When the moment came for combat the Thunderbolt's unequalled diving speed would put its guns within range of destroying that formation, long before the enemy even knew American pilots had spotted them. Not only had Kearby proved the P-47 could be deadly in the Pacific he had entered the race for Pacific Top Gun with P-38 pilots Like Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire.
Japanese (Knights)
A6M2- Sub for Ki-43
A6M5- Sub for A6M3
Ki-61
G4M
C-47
GVs
M-3
M-8
M-16
USAAF (Bishops)
P-38G
P-47D11
P-40E
B-25C and H
B-24
C-47
GVs
M-3
M-4
M-16
Jeep
ARENA SETTINGS
Map= Burma
Killshooter is on.
Visibility is 12.0 miles
Fuel burn rate is 1.0
Ack settings are .25
Base capture: 10 troops
Radar (1943)
Sector 316,800
Tower 132,000
Icons Enemy Off Friendly 2.5K
