War in Pacific Skies

By Charlie Cooper, Ann Cooper, Jack Fellows and Walter J. Boyne

Paintings by the renowned aviation artist plus “lots of wartime photographs and plenty of entertaining and informative text. . . . absorbing reading” (Aviation History).

Climb in to the cockpit of some of America’s most heralded warbirds, like the P-38 that carried Richard Bong to his forty kills, and fly along with Paul Tibitts in the Enola Gay as it makes its final approach on Hiroshima. This lavishly illustrated book covers the most famous air engagements in World War II’s Pacific Theater of Operation in an exquisite and beautiful fusion of art and history. Paintings by acclaimed aviation artist Jack Fellows are supplemented by color maps, previously unpublished photographs, original artwork, and personal accounts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 6, 2010
• ISBN: 9781610601214

Book preview

WAR IN PACIFIC SKIES

Featuring the Aviation Art of Jack Fellows

© Jack Fellows

CHARLIE & ANN COOPER

Bob Rocker, Research Director, Cactus Air Force Art Project

Foreword by Walter J. Boyne, Colonel, USAF, Retired

Contents

Dedication

Foreword by Colonel Walter J. Boyne, USAF, Retired

Introductions and Acknowledgments

Prelude to War Expansion and Isolation

Chapter 1 IMPERIAL JAPAN SEIZES THE OFFENSIVE

Chapter 2 THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Chapter 3 MOVING ON MORESBY

Chapter 4 CACTUS AIR FORCE

Chapter 5 PACIFIC STRATEGY

Chapter 6 OPERATION CARTWHEEL

Chapter 7 ISLAND HOPPING

Chapter 8 CHINA-BURMA-INDIA

Chapter 9 RETURN TO THE PHILIPPINES

Chapter 10 VICTORY

POSTLUDE Pacific Skies

Appendix Representative Aircraft—Pacific Theater of Operation, World War II

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Dedication

This volume is dedicated to the memory of three American heroes:

Daniel Tipton Roberts Jr., Captain, USAAF

CO of 433rd Fighter Squadron, 475th Fighter Group, Captain Roberts, a prewar divinity student, had just achieved his fourteenth victory, an A6M Zero, when he was killed over Alexishafen, New Guinea, 9 November 1943.

Duane Whitney Martin, Captain, USAF, DFC

Captain Martin was shot down and captured while flying as copilot of an HH-43B Huskie on a Search and Rescue Mission. He escaped from a Laotian POW camp, but was murdered in Laos, 16 July 1967.

Jeffrey L. Ethell

A pastor, pilot, photographer, author, and gentleman, Ethell was killed in a P-38 crash, Tillamook, Oregon, 6 June 1997.

Foreword

By Colonel Walter J. Boyne, USAF, Retired, Former Director, NASM, Smithsonian Institution

The long and bitter war in the Pacific during World War II has often been recorded by historians, but never in so unique and thought-provoking a manner as provided by War in Pacific Skies. This book, with its magnificent paintings by the estimable Jack Fellows, offers an entirely new way to view the Pacific war, and will become, I’m certain, a model for books that follow.

Curiously, it is the very fact that the Pacific war has been reported so often, particularly in television documentaries, that makes this new book so important. Over the years, the public has become accustomed to seeing the Pacific war delivered in documentary tidbits, which often use the same footage over and over. This is a shame, given the millions of feet of unexploited footage that lies in the various depositories, but the expedient—and inexpensive—way to make documentary films is to select readily available material. The result is that the pictorial reporting of the war in the Pacific has become almost stylized, so familiar that we can almost reconstruct the documentary war in our mind’s eye, beginning with the familiar scenes of Pearl Harbor, the banzai cheers at Corregidor, the turning wakes at Midway, the long lines of assault craft heading toward the beaches, the B-29 takeoffs from Tinian, and finally, the ceremony on the Missouri that ended the war. Now there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with these familiar images—it’s just that their very familiarity dulls the sharp edge of historic events and renders them less moving.

The very reverse is true of War in Pacific Skies, which offers both Jack Fellows’ art and accurate, insightful historical comment. The two in combination present an entirely new and informative perspective on the Pacific war, and the technique would profitably lend itself not only to other theaters but to other wars, and I hope this becomes the case.

Another valuable aspect of this book is the manner in which particularly pertinent photographs are provided to supplement the artwork and further explain the history behind the paintings. Fellows’ choice of subject matter is superb, for he portrays not only the principal events of the war but also the lesser-known incidents that give a tactile feel to the drama of the book. Thus, in his coverage of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the artist includes a relatively unknown incident, the dogfight between two Curtiss SOC-3 Seagulls and a Zero, in which the Zero is the loser. This is the very essence of warfare, two ordinary aircraft with ordinary crews plunged into combat on the first day of the war and demonstrating courage and ability of the highest order. It is not something that will be found in documentaries, nor in many comprehensive naval histories, but it portrays war as it was on its first day, and as it would be on its last: a deadly business fought out on both sides by ordinary individuals trying their best to do their jobs and serve their countries. Fellows is equally adept with larger subjects, of course, offering excellent paintings of the battle of Midway; the war-torn skies over Guadalcanal, where the American effort hung by the thread of Cactus Air Force courage; and the blessed haven provided at such great cost, Iwo Jima, where damaged B-29s could land. But I must confess a partiality to his choice of lesser-known but equally deserving subjects, an attack by Zeros on a recce B-17, B-25s tearing up Wewak Harbor, and U.S. Navy PT boats fighting off a swarm of Zeros looking for easy targets.

And just as a good book lets you read through it easily but lures you back to study and savor the more meaningful passages, so does Jack Fellows’ art compel you to study the paintings, to get all of the meaning implicit in the markings, in the methods of attack, in the angle of the sun and the chop of the water. This is a wonderful book, one that inspires and educates and makes you wish for more.

Introductions & Acknowledgments

Aviation artist Jack Fellows, whose beautiful work forms the basis for this book, is a true professional. His realistic landscapes, figure drawings, and aircraft scenes have earned him an excellent reputation and many awards. A former president and an Artist Fellow member of the American Society of Aviation Artists and a signature member of the Pastel Society of America, Jack’s recent focus has been on the air war in the Pacific and on his Cactus Air Force Art Project. His work includes paintings, prints, and illustrations for book covers, history books, stamps, and posters. Following his formal art education, Jack served in the United States Navy as a helicopter aircrewman. In his active and varied work life, Jack has been a commercial fisherman, a shipwright, and a fixed base operator at Renton Field, Washington. His mechanical skills and experiences have stood him in good stead in the creation of his realistic depictions of the lesser-known stories of America’s aviation heroes. Jack and his wife, Louise, live in Seattle.

As research director of the Cactus Air Force Art Project for many years, Bob Rocker has made major contributions to its success. A native of Florida with a varied business background in the transportation industry, Bob has traveled widely to interview many veterans of World War II in the Pacific, to unearth archival information, and to visit some of the places where the action took place. In his travels, he has acquired a broad circle of friends who have contributed to his knowledge of the war in the Pacific and to a vast collection of photographs—both historic and current—some of which are included in this book. Bob lives in Pompano Beach, Florida.

For authors Charlie and Ann Cooper, War in Pacific Skies is the third collaboration with MBI Publishing Company. Tuskegee’s Heroes Featuring the Aviation Art of Roy La Grone and How to Draw Aircraft Like a Pro, written and illustrated with aviation artist Andy Whyte and more than 30 other U.S. aviation artists, are currently in bookstores. Ann Cooper is also the author of four biographies of women aviators and of 700 magazine articles, many of which focus on aviation art. She is the editor of Aero Brush, the quarterly magazine of the American Society of Aviation Artists. Major General Charlie Cooper, USAFR, Retired was Commander of the New York Air National Guard and a longtime manager with the telecommunications industry.

Colonel Walter J. Boyne, USAF, Retired, a pilot with over 5,000 hours in a wide variety of Air Force aircraft, is the former director of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. A prolific author of 29 books and more than 400 magazine articles on aviation and an active consultant to documentary television programming, he has edited a two-volume encyclopedia of aviation history, Air Warfare. His fascinating Clash of Wings, World War II in the Air has been a valuable research source. The authors are most grateful for his foreword to this volume.

The following are names of people and organizations that have contributed resources to the Cactus Air Force Art Project, presented in random order: USAF Museum; U.S. Naval Historical Center; National Air and Space Museum; USAF Academy Library; USMC History Center; Colonel Richard Rauschkolb and staff, Maxwell AFB Historical Center; Australian War Memorial Museum; Bob Lawson and Commander Doug Siegfried, Tailhook Association; Hal Winfrey, Forty-third Bomb Group; Curran Jones, Thirty-ninth Fighter Squadron; Warren Lewis, 433rd Fighter Squadron; Carroll C. Snuffy Smith, 418N Fighter Squadron; Charlie Sullivan, Thirty-ninth Fighter Squadron; Harold Graham, Thirty-sixth Fighter Squadron; Dick Suehr, Thirty-ninth Fighter Squadron; Roger Watts; Carl Bong; Matt Gac, Thirty-eighth Bomb Group; F. Ken Darrow, Thirty-eighth Bomb Group; W. F. Thomason, VPB-71; Doug Canning, 339th Fighter Squadron; Rex Barber, Seventieth Fighter Squadron; Victor Tatelman, 499th Bomb Squadron; Don McGee, Eightieth Fighter Squadron and Thirty-sixth Fighter Squadron; Lynn Daker, 500th Bomb Squadron; Rumsey Ewing, CO PT-191 and crew; Ed Farley, CO PT-190 and crew; Benjamin Eben Dale Jr., VMF-124; Kate Flaherty, National Archives; Admiral Wm. I. Martin; 110th Tactical Recon Squadron; Solomons Helicopters; Solomon Airlines; Richard Leahy; Kiunga Aviation; Missionary Lizzie Whitehead; Jeff Ethell; Continental Air Micronesia; David Pennefather; Marion F. Kirby, Eightieth Fighter Squadron and 431st Fighter Squadron; Ted Hanks, Fortieth Fighter Squadron and 433rd Fighter Squadron; Bill Wallisch, Thirty-fifth Fighter Squadron; Richard L. West, Thirty-fifth Fighter Squadron; John Tilley, 431st Fighter Squadron; Wiley Woods, Ninetieth Bomb Group; Mike Moffitt, 82TRS; Larry Hickey, President, International Research and Publishing Corp.; Norb Ruff, Eightieth Fighter Squadron; Francis M. Frank Fleming, VF-16; Alex Vraciu, VF-6; Stoughton Atwood and crew, VPB-115; David McCampbell, VF-15; Wm. Bill Gardner, Thirty-fifth Fighter Squadron; Colonel Chas. MacDonald, 475th Fighter Group; Paul C. Murphy Jr., Eightieth Fighter Squadron; Lawrence Wulf, Nineteenth Bomb Squadron; Thirty-eighth Bomb Group Association; 345th Bomb Group Association; Forty-third Bomb Group Association; Jim Benz, 348th Fighter Group; Marion Carl, VMF-223; James Scott, 2ERS; Paul Teague, 312th Bomb Group; Third Attack Group Association; Thirty-ninth Fighter Squadron; Eighth Photo Recon Squadron; Jim McEwan, 8PRS; Ninety-first Photo Wing; Seventeenth Recon Bomb Squadron; Sixth Photo Group; Lloyd Breezy Boren, 65th Bomb Squadron; Roger Haberman, VMF-121; Percy Douglas, VMFA-111; Dick Vodra, Eighth Fighter Squadron; Bill Pascalis, Forty-ninth Fighter Group; Jim Kendall, 307th Bomb Group; Gene Olson, 41st Bomb Group; Shorty Norton, 80th Fighter Squadron; Warner Chapman, VMF-221; Catholic Church Missionary Association; Frank Drury, VMF-212 and VMF-113; Janice Olson; H. Syd Bottomley Jr., VB-3; James Lansdale; Bob Galer, CO VMF-224; USS Enterprise (CV-6) Association; Tom Powell, VT-10; Steve Ferguson; Roger Hedrick, VF-17; I. James Morrison, VP-91 and Catalina International Association; Pacific Missionary Association; Henry Sakaida; Jack Conger, VMF-212; USMC Air and Ground Museum; Lieutenant Commander Timmerman, USS Randolph (CV-15) Association; Robert M. De Haven, Forty-ninth Fighter Group; Harry Winston Brown, 47PS and 431st Fighter Squadron; Ken Giroux, Thirty-sixth Fighter Squadron; Pappy Turner, Thirty-sixth Fighter Squadron; Charles King, Thirty-ninth Fighter Squadron; C. M. Corky Smith, Eightieth Fighter Squadron; Jay T. Robbins, Eightieth Fighter Squadron; Carl and Earl McGee, DD-480 (USS Halford); Lex McAulay; Phil Gowing, Ninetieth Bomb Group; Harold Buell, VB-10; Don Lee, Seventh Fighter Squadron; Fats Elofson, Eighth Fighter Squadron; Dawn Richardson; Putnam McDowell, 8PRS; Ben Armstrong, 6PG; Leon Headley, 17R Bomb Squadron; Roland Fisher, Sixty-third Bomb Squadron; Bill Pictor, 82TRS; Chas. Whistler, 342nd Fighter Squadron; Hollis Hayman, Eighth Bomb Squadron; Robert Mosley, Eighth Bomb Squadron; Calvin van Pelt, 3AG; John Robinson, 3AG; John Shemelynce, Eighth Bomb Squadron; Andy Weigel, Eighth Bomb Squadron; John Henebry, Ninetieth Bomb Squadron; Art Holmberg, 3AG; E. Leroy Reid, 38RS; Yale Saffro, Eightieth Fighter Squadron; John T. Blackburn, CO VF-17; National Museum of Naval Aviation; Bruce Hoy; Chas. Langdell, Thirty-fifth Fighter Squadron; Dennis Cooper, 475th Fighter Group; Archie Simpson, VMSB-132; Leslie Nielson, Ninth Fighter Squadron; Talair; Osamu Tagaya; Harvey and Barbara Pace, Pacific Missionary Aviation; Kaoru Hasegawa; Sig Unander and Esc. 201 officers; Jon Guttman, Lance Jones, and Gina McNeely; Andreanna Pappas; Father Terrance Quinn, Dominican Brothers, Poporang Island; Chas. Martin; Frank Durant, 8PRS; Major General Frank Nichols, 475th Fighter Group; Reverend Victor Stevko; Dan Cunningham, VF-17; Jim Sills, 8PRS; James Diefenderfer, Forty-third Bomb Group; Ed Underwood; L. T. Twomey, VMF-115; Frank DeLorenzo, VP-102; Sylvester S. Aichele, VP-12; D. Loos, 8PRS; Sergeant Zock, 17R Bomb Squadron; Clark Sykes, 8PRS; Paul Popma, Thirty-eighth Bomb Group; and Leroy V. Grosshuesch, CO Thirty-ninth Fighter Squadron.

The authors would also like to acknowledge the staffs of the Research and Public Affairs divisions at the United States Air Force Museum, Dayton, Ohio, and especially archivist Lonna McKinley. We appreciate the assistance of Major Kevin P. Murphy, United States Army, executive officer of the Department of History at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York; Mr. Don Rawlings, a USAF Museum volunteer; Mr. Jeff Hunt, curator at the Nimitz National Museum of the Pacific War, Fredericksburg, Texas; and Mr. Hill Goodspeed at the Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida. Finally, the authors would like to acknowledge the help and support of MBI editors Mike Haenggi, Sara Perfetti, and Steve Gansen for their help in getting this project off the ground and in bringing it in for a smooth landing.

Prelude to War

EXPANSION AND ISOLATION

War clouds darkened the Pacific skies during the summer of 1941. While diplomatic contacts between the United States and Imperial Japan continued, the animosity between the two countries escalated. In response to requests from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, America demanded that Japan evacuate China, imposing a broad embargo on materials of strategic importance to Japan such as steel and oil. Japan, conversely, demanded a free hand in Asia, refusing to give up its Asian territorial gains. When Great Britain and the Netherlands joined the embargo, the die was cast.

Having suffered a defeat by Russia in northern Asia, Japan ambitiously eyed expansion to the south, seeking the creation of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere that would encompass all of China, French Indo-China, Siam and Burma, the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, the Netherlands East Indies, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and the islands of the Central Pacific. Such a Sphere would eliminate the colonial powers in Asia, give Japan essential raw materials, enlarge its territory, and enhance its divine place in the world.

Japan’s expansionism reflected several historical trends. In government and politics, the growing influence of an aggressive army leadership culminated in the emperor’s appointment of General Hideki Tojo to prime minister. The impact of that influence was twofold: a growing national expenditure on arms and a willingness to fight for additional land.

Beginning late in the nineteenth century, Japan had gradually conquered territory that included Korea, Formosa, Manchuria, and many of the coastal islands of eastern Asia. At the end of World War I, Japan had been ceded former German possessions in the mid-Pacific. To fulfill its national destiny, Japan needed more. World conquest was its goal. As one Japanese politician, Baron Guichi Tanaka, expressed it in 1927, In the future, if we want to control China, we must first crush the United States. . . . In order to conquer the world, we must first conquer China.¹

First in 1931 and again in 1937, Japan attacked in China. Labeling these attacks incidents, not declarations of war, Japan seized a significant portion of northeastern China and the key area around Shanghai and Nanking, committing terrible atrocities on the civilian populations of both. China, which had been engaged in a civil war between the Nationalist forces of General Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung’s Communists, united to retaliate. The sheer size of the country and its large army held a major portion of Japan’s forces in check throughout the coming war in the Pacific.

As Japan fought in China, its arms buildup, military training, and combat experience grew. Having unabashedly copied Western technologies, its major manufacturers produced ships, airplanes, tanks, and armaments that were superior to the largely obsolete weapons of war available to the Chinese and deployed by the United States, the British Commonwealth countries, and the Netherlands. Using nearly brutal training methods, Japan continued to produce highly capable and fiercely dedicated military and naval officers, soldiers and sailors, and army and navy pilots. Those trained forces, patterned on the ancient samurai, devoted to the emperor as a Shinto god, and thoroughly indoctrinated in the Code of Bushido, or Honor, gained initial combat experience against the Chinese. Training, attitude, and experience made them formidable.

The puzzle pieces fell into place. With at least a decade of preparation for war, a national dominance by the military leadership, a need to acquire raw materials to support both the arms buildup and the rapidly growing population, and a culture that included worship of the emperor and a willingness to sacrifice, Japan was ready to launch its conquest.

© Jack Fellows

Lost!

Early in the morning of 2 July 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan flew over the huge Pacific Ocean toward a fuel stop at Howland Island. Having already flown approximately 32,000 miles, Earhart and Noonan sought to achieve the first around-the-world flight at the equator. Earhart must have searched the water below, desperate to sight land, willing the island to appear. Confronting the awful truth that they were lost, she and Noonan must have felt despair.

The loss of Earhart and Noonan was the most famous and controversial flight of the 1930s. The mystery of that loss has never been solved. Some have contended that Earhart and Noonan were engaged in a mission of espionage. This painting exemplifies the tension and the drama of the period immediately prior to World War II.

Imperial Japanese Navy pilots in Shanghai, China, in 1937 were briefed for bombing operations against Chinese targets. Combat experience gained in China by both navy and army pilots and crews was especially useful in the attacks on Hawaii, the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, and the Netherlands East Indies. That experience, based on rigorous, sometimes brutal, training and coupled with modern aircraft like the Mitsubishi A6M series Zero (Zeke), enabled rapid conquest of 70 million people in the early months of the Pacific war. United States Air Force Museum

As Japan sought to expand, the United States became increasingly isolationist, disdaining foreign entanglements. The isolationist perspective, supported early in U.S. history by George Washington, was further fueled by a loss of 50,000 men in World War I, a war to end war that was followed by an uneasy peace. As a result, the U.S. Senate refused to join the League of Nations, the brainchild of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, or to ratify the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the war in Europe. The isolationist view that prevailed was further reflected in treaties and legislation that limited arms and supported neutrality. Coupled with the economic impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s, that view essentially crippled the U.S. national defense forces. The army and the navy were understaffed, poorly trained, and equipped with too few and largely obsolete weapons.

A few visionaries, who observed what was happening in Japan, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy, spoke out. Among them was Assistant Chief of Air Services for the U.S. Army General Billy Mitchell, who wrote prophetically in 1926 following a trip to Japan: A surprise aerial attack on Pearl Harbor will take place while Japanese negotiators talk peace with U.S. officials, moreover the attack will come on a Sunday morning.² Like other prophets, he was regarded without honor in his own country, even by his military superiors, who were reluctant to oppose the politicians. It was not until a dozen years later that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, supported by a few key senators such as Carl Vinson of Georgia, was sufficiently free of the demands of the Depression that he could turn his attention and his persuasive powers to the rapidly deteriorating international scene.

Sensitive to the horrors in China, to the demands from General Chiang Kai-shek for American aid, and to the growing needs of Great Britain as it opposed Nazi Germany, President Roosevelt led changes that were little and