Target: Rabaul Read Free

the bombardier keyed his intercom microphone. “Mac,” shouted Lt. Thomas F. Doyle, “let’s get the hell out of here!”
    McMurria’s options were limited. Typically, condensation rising from the warm Bismarck Sea formed thick white cumulus clouds, providing excellent hiding places. But this morning, the skies were clear. Miles to the east, McMurria could see a “little bit of bad weather” and quickly realized that those clouds represented his crew’s best hope for survival. Shoving the throttles forward, he rolled the heavy bomber into a sharp turn. Up forward, Doyle instinctively threw a switch, releasing the entire bomb load in a single salvo. He hoped centrifugal force might propel them toward the enemy airdrome, but the effort was more of a gesture than a calculated attempt to hit anything. Still, his snap decision aided the whole crew. Freed of its heavy bomb load, the Liberator accelerated.
    Roaring across the harbor, McMurria hauled back on the control column to get above the guns of the anchored warships. Shells began exploding nearby, one so close that it peppered the right inboard engine with shrapnel. Excited chatter on the intercom announced the arrival of fast-climbing Zekes. In the tail turret, Sgt. Frank O. Wynne called out three fighters approaching from astern. Three more were reported overhead by Burnette, who now manned the upper turret.
    The Liberator had ten .50-caliber machine guns for defense, but even that relative arsenal was not enough to deter six of the Imperial Navy’s best fighters. Within moments the Zekes initiated a well-coordinated attack, charging in from several directions simultaneously. McMurria tried every trick he knew, rolling the big aircraft and then skidding it from side to side, but the carrier-based pilots were savvy. “They came at us from above, below, from head-on, from the rear and from port and starboard,” McMurria would later recall, “… and in spite of any evasive action I could take, we were getting shot up badly.”
    The antiaircraft shell that exploded near the number three engine sealed their fate: the damaged engine began losing power. Though the B-24 had no realisticchance of escape, McMurria continued out to sea. The crew desperately hoped the Zekes would turn back, but the rain clouds were still fifteen miles distant. It would take almost six minutes to reach them at the bomber’s reduced speed—an eternity if the fighters kept up their disciplined attacks. During those few minutes, the Zekes could pump thousands of machine-gun bullets and dozens of explosive 20mm shells into the Liberator at point-blank range. Dreams of Sydney evaporated.
    But the gunfire suddenly stopped. Scanning the skies, McMurria and his crew wondered why. Martindale glanced out his side window and saw a Zeke to his right, maintaining a loose formation with the Liberator but otherwise making no aggressive moves. In the upper turret, Burnette reported that another enemy fighter, directly above them and slightly to the front, “was doing the same thing.”
    The pilots looked up just in time to see a black object tumble from the Zeke overhead. Martindale mistook it for an external fuel tank until the device exploded, sending out brilliant streamers of burning phosphorus that hung in the air like long, white tentacles. Luckily the weapon, a Type 3 aerial burst bomb, had detonated to the side of the Liberator’s flight path. The astonished crew barely had time to react before another Zeke joined the one overhead and boxed in the bomber. One by one, three more bombs tumbled down. Martindale called out their release, giving McMurria ample time to veer away. The busy pilots had no idea they were among the first Allied airmen to witness the use of the spectacular but ineffective weapon.
    Having failed to stop the Liberator, the Japanese pilots resumed conventional gunnery attacks. Soon thereafter, McMurria had to feather the prop on the number three engine, further reducing the