Target: Rabaul Read Free Page B

two automatic life rafts had deployed properly from compartments in the main wing. One didn’t surface at all, and the other was tangled in its own lanyard, about to be pulled under by the sinking nose section.
    Just then, Staff Sgt. Fred S. Engle, the radio operator, popped up. Realizing that the raft’s lanyard had to be cut immediately, he discovered that his survival knife was missing, evidently torn away in the crash. Doyle, the bombardier, surfaced twenty feet away, and Engle shouted to him for help. Unfortunately, Doyle had also lost his survival knife. A moment later, however, he remembered that he had a backup—a dime store keychain with a pocketknife attached. Pulling it fromhis clothing, he threw it to Engle without a moment’s thought about the possible consequences. Mesmerized, the other crewmen watched the little knife flip end-over-end through the air. Doyle had a nasty shoulder wound, was treading water, and wore a bulky Mae West, yet his twenty-foot toss was perfect. So was Engle’s one-handed catch. Diving underwater, Engle cut the lanyard. The raft popped to the surface.
    The last man to come up was Martindale. Just before impact he had turned off the master switches to prevent a fire, but he was briefly knocked unconscious. Revived by seawater rising in the cockpit, he found himself pinned in his seat. Wriggling free only after the cockpit was fully flooded, Martindale escaped through the side window and discovered that he wasn’t wearing a Mae West. He had taken it off when they stopped on the runway at Port Moresby and subsequently forgot to put it back on. The oversight nearly killed him. Burdened by wet clothing and the .45 automatic he wore in a shoulder harness, he barely reached the surface. After a quick gasp, he sank. Kicking back to the surface one last time, he came up behind Sugden, the navigator, and in desperation seized Sugden’s harness. This gave Sugden a terrible fright: he thought a shark had grabbed him.
    In all, eight men got out of the Liberator. Erskine and Grandolpho, evidently trapped in the broken bomber, never appeared. The survivors—McMurria, Martindale, Doyle, Sugden, Burnette, Engle, Wynn, and Sgt. Raymond J. Farnell, Jr.—gathered around the single raft, assessing their injuries. Most were minor, but Tom Doyle was bad shape. In addition to the wound in his back, he had a deep gash in his right thigh. A piece of jagged metal had sliced all the way to the bone when he escaped from the sinking plane. While McMurria tried to administer first aid from a small emergency kit, Doyle lay bleeding on the floor of the raft. The rest of the crew, glancing around nervously for sharks, clung to the raft’s sides.
    It was barely midmorning, the sun still hours from its zenith, as the eight survivors came to grips with their situation. They were alone in the middle of the Bismarck Sea, their world reduced to a few square yards of yellow neoprene and some meager supplies, which did not include fresh water.
    No one was thinking of Sydney anymore. Nor could any of them have imagined, even in their worst nightmares, the terrible odyssey that lay ahead.

CHAPTER 1

A Pirate Goes to Washington
    L IEUTENANT GENERAL GEORGE Churchill Kenney was on a roll. At age fifty-three, as commander of all Allied aerial forces in the Southwest Pacific Area (SOWESPAC) and commanding general of the U.S. Army’s Fifth Air Force, he had just achieved one of the most decisive air-sea victories in history. During a three-day battle in early March 1943, his American and Australian squadrons practically annihilated a major Japanese convoy in the Bismarck Sea. Sixteen ships were en route to New Guinea with thousands of fresh troops and tons of food and supplies for the desperate, starving garrison at Lae. Kenney’s aircraft sank all eight transports and four of the eight escorting destroyers, killing about 3,500 Japanese troops. American losses were one B-17 and three fighters shot down, totaling thirteen