Wisconsin’s Admiral Marc “Pete” Mitscher played a role
My father was a career Air Force officer and was assigned to the Military Advisory Assistance Group (MAAG) in Taipei, Taiwan, from 1959-1961. We lived in U.S. Government-provided housing in the nearby village of Tien Mou. I have fond childhood memories of Tien Mou except for the time I fractured my skull at recess at elementary school and spent five days in the Navy hospital in Taipei. One enchanted evening, my parents took me to see the film South Pacific (1958). That film and the earlier Broadway musical were based on the 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific (winner of the Pulitzer Prize) by James Michener. Living in Taiwan as a child and seeing the movie South Pacific led to a lifelong interest in the Far East and especially military campaigns there. This article is the latest example of that interest.
Tales of the South Pacific
James Michener was a Navy officer in World War II in the South Pacific where his duties took him to various exotic isles (49 by his count). He later confessed in Return to Paradise (1950) that he was able to travel so extensively because his superiors thought he was related to Admiral Mitscher:
…for many American naval officers were convinced that I was the son—illegitimate or otherwise—of Admiral Marc Mitscher. I corrected neither their error nor their spelling, for it was because of my supposed kinship to the great aviation tactician that I was allowed the privilege of traveling to so many islands…
Tales of the South Pacific is what it says it is—a number (18) of stories. One tale involves a supply officer from Wisconsin: “Captain Samuel Kelley, 54 years old, five feet four, 149 pounds, native of Madison, Wisconsin, graduate of Annapolis was a Supply Officer. He was a small man of tireless energy and brilliant mind.” His first words to the narrator speaking in the voice of James Michener included this admonition: “And never wear an aviator’s cap in this Depot.” As the Michener narrator explains:
Captain Kelley had a mania against aviators’ baseball caps. Men in the air arm of the Navy loved the tight-fitting, comfortable little caps. And when Marc Mitscher started wearing one it was difficult to keep the entire Navy from following suit. But no men serving under Captain Kelley wore baseball caps. He issued the order on the day he arrived to take charge of the depot. Next day he put two enlisted men in the brig. The day following, he confined an officer to quarters for four days. After that, we learned our lesson.
Apparently, Captain Kelley did not know that Marc Mitscher was born a fellow Wisconsinite.
Oklahoma
Mitscher was born in Hillsboro, Wisconsin, in 1887, and at the age of two, his family was part of the Oklahoma land rush. His father opened a mercantile business in Oklahoma City and was the mayor from 1892 to 1894. In 1900 President McKinley appointed him as the U.S. agent to the Osage Nation, and the Mitscher family moved to Pawhuska.
These names may sound familiar to you. Edna Ferber, acclaimed novelist from Appleton, Wisconsin, wrote a fictional epic in 1930 about the Oklahoma land rush: Cimarron (winner of the Pulitzer Prize). The book traces the move of Yancey and Sabra Cravat from Kansas to the newly-established town of Osage whose main street was Pawhuska Avenue. The book was made into a movie of the same name and was awarded an Oscar for best picture in 1932, the second year of the Oscars.
After moving to Pawhuska, Mitscher’s father sent him to schools in Washington, D.C., but Marc returned to Pawhuska in the summers. He spent much of his day on horseback and “frequently chummed with a lad named Clarence Tinker.” Tinker was also born in 1887, north of Pawhuska on the Osage reservation—he was one-eighth Osage and spoke Osage, like his father. Tinker was an Army aviator who, following December 7, ended up taking over command of the air forces in Hawaii, after the prior commander had been relieved. Leading an attack of four LB-30 bombers from Midway in June 1942, Tinker’s plane disappeared without a trace. Within several months, the recently established Midwest Air Depot near Oklahoma City was renamed Tinker Field and is now known as Tinker Air Force Base. (My father’s last assignment was at that base, and I attended my junior year of high school at Midwest City High School.) Sadly, General Tinker’s son, Major Clarence J. Tinker, Jr., a P-38 pilot, disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea on May 19, 1943, while on a mission from Tunisia.
Marc Mitscher attended the U.S. Naval Academy where he was given the nickname “Oklahoma Pete” because a midshipman from Oklahoma the year before had flunked out. After two years, Mitscher likewise flunked out; however, his father was quickly able to get him re-enrolled. Repeating his first two years, he graduated in 1910. He attended flight school at Pensacola Naval Air Station and earned his wings in 1916; he was designated Naval Aviator No. 33. Over the next 30 years, Mitscher had several shore and sea assignments, and in the summer of 1941, he assumed command of the aircraft carrier Hornet. On April 18, 1942, he watched the Doolittle Raiders take off from his ship.
Christmas Party
In his collection of short stories, one of James Michener’s tales involves the dire situation where there was no whiskey for the Christmas party on one of the Solomon Islands. Flying a condemned torpedo bomber (a Grumman TBF Avenger), three men embarked on a several-day, several-island adventure looking for whiskey. They started out with some money and several articles with which to “horse trade” for whiskey. Our interest is with the island of Bougainville (part of Papua New Guinea) where the sojourners approached the coast at Empress Augusta Bay on the west side of the island, and “heading for the gaunt volcano’s white clouds of steam,” they landed at Piva North airfield. There they traded a radio for two ice machines (alas, there was no whiskey) and took off the next day:
With some apprehension we stowed our ice machines and started south. We circled the volcano and watched plumes of smoke rise high into the air. Behind the jagged cone among tall mountain ranges lay an extinct crater filled with clear blue water. Billy Mitchell Lake it was named, a strange monument to a strange man.
Michener does not actually give the name of the volcano with the smoke. But because of his mention of Billy Mitchell Lake, we know the volcano is Bagana, an active volcano to this day. The photo above shows Bagana Volcano spewing smoke in the background (view is from the east, the opposite side described by Michener). The recognized name of the geologic feature in the foreground is Billy Mitchell Crater Lake—an obscure piece of Wisconsin history on Bougainville in Papua, New Guinea. You may now have two questions: (1) Did they ever get their whiskey? Yes, they acquired 22 cases of “Christmas cheer” in Noumea, New Caledonia. (2) Why such an interest in Bougainville? Because that is where P-38 Lockheed Lightnings taking off from Guadalcanal under Admiral Mitscher’s command shot down Japanese Admiral Yamamoto.
Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal, named after the hometown of a Spanish explorer who came to the island in 1568, is an island in the Solomon Islands. The U.S. Marines invaded Guadalcanal in August 1942 to prevent the Japanese from completing an airfield that, if completed, would threaten the main line of communication between the United States and Australia. The invading Marines quickly took control of the airfield that was soon named “Henderson Field” after Major Lofton Henderson, a Marine Corps pilot killed in the Battle of Midway. After numerous air, land, and sea battles, the Japanese evacuated the entire island in February 1943.
To thwart the Allies’ northern advance from Guadalcanal, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor attack, planned and carried out attacks against the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, known as “Operation I-Go.” Yamamoto was featured on the December 22, 1941 cover of TIME magazine with the caption: “Japan’s Aggressor: Admiral Yamamoto--His was the daring execution of a brilliant treachery.” In the summer of 1942, Yamamoto moved his headquarters from Japan, first to Truk atoll, a major base in the Caroline Islands; and then later to Rabaul on the island of New Britain in early April 1943. The first attack in Operation I-GO was against Guadalcanal on April 7 with later attacks against New Guinea. Believing that Operation I-Go had been successful, Yamamoto ended the attacks on April 16. A few days before, he had decided to inspect several Japanese-held locations at the southern end of the island of Bougainville. On April 13, 1942, U.S. naval intelligence in Hawaii intercepted and deciphered a Japanese message that provided the details of his trip. On April 18, Yamamoto would leave Rabaul at 6:00 a.m. and arrive two hours later at Ballale, a small island just south of Bougainville. Next, he would travel by boat to another island and return to Ballale. From there, he would fly to an airfield (Kahili) on the southern part of Bougainville, have lunch, and then return to Rabaul by 3:40 p.m. The message stated there would be one bomber and six fighters.
Admiral Mitscher arrived on Guadalcanal a week before “Operation I-Go,” almost the same day that Yamamoto arrived at Rabaul. After leaving the Hornet, Mitscher had held shore-based commands in Hawaii and New Caledonia, and was then sent to Guadalcanal as Commander, Air, Solomons (COMAIRSOLS). The planes under his command were Army, Navy, Marines, and even some from New Zealand. Admiral “Bull” Halsey, commander of the South Pacific (COMSOPAC), knew that “we’d probably catch hell” from the Japanese in the air: “That’s why I sent Pete Mitscher up there. Pete was a fighting fool and I knew it.” To explain “up there”: Guadalcanal is almost 1,000 miles slightly northwest of Noumea, New Caledonia, where Halsey had his headquarters.
In a preliminary inquiry from Halsey whether Yamamoto could be intercepted, Mitscher replied in the affirmative. Halsey gave Mitscher approval for preliminary planning, and after Halsey received permission from Admiral Nimitz (Commander-in-Chief Pacific) in Hawaii, he ordered Mitscher to carry out the mission. There were several decisions for Mitscher and his staff to make. The decision as to what planes to use was straightforward because only the Army P-38s (and not the Navy and Marine Corps planes) had the range. However, the P-38s still required additional drop tanks, which were delivered from Port Moresby, New Guinea the day before the mission. Major John Mitchell, commander of the 339th Fighter Squadron, was selected to lead the mission.
An important decision to make was whether to shoot down Yamamoto’s plane, or else try to sink the ship to which he would transfer. Mitscher’s staff (largely Navy and Marine personnel) seemed to prefer sinking the ship. Major Mitchell objected, and one of his points was that although they might attack the ship, they would not be certain Yamamoto had been killed. Admiral Mitscher resolved this debate by siding with Mitchell. Mitscher said, “All right, Mitchell’s got to do the job, we’ve got to leave it to him. Is it in the air, Major?” Mitchell answered, “Yes, sir. It’s our only chance.”
Flying directly from Guadalcanal to the intercept point would mean flying near Japanese positions on other islands, so Mitscher’s staff and Mitchell laid out an indirect route that involved several over-water legs flying set numbers of minutes along set headings. Mitchell requested a more accurate Navy compass for his plane. Flying altitude would be less than 50 feet. Takeoff time was set for 0710, and they would be formed up by 0725—the planned intercept time of Yamamoto’s plane was 0935.
Major Mitchell decided to take all 18 available planes in anticipation of additional Zeros from Kahili airfield being near the intercept point. Four airplanes would be in the “killer flight” with 14 planes above for cover. Admiral Mitscher had been impressed with four pilots from a previous mission, and they were named to the “killer flight”: Lanphier (the leader), Barber, McLanahan, and Moore. Mitchell chose the remaining pilots.
In addition to Henderson Field, several new airfields were constructed on Guadalcanal. One of them was Fighter No. 2, which was not far from Henderson Field where the P-38s were stationed. The first photo of Fighter No. 2 below was taken in February 1943. You can see in the second photo that more work had been completed by the time it was taken on April 14, 1943, four days before the Yamamoto mission.
On April 18, Admiral Mitscher drove over to Fighter No. 2 to see Mitchell and the other pilots take off. One plane blew a tire on takeoff (McLanahan), and another plane (Moore) had to return to the airfield shortly after takeoff when its added fuel tank malfunctioned while being tested. Lanphier motioned to pilots Holmes and Hine to join the killer flight.
Bougainville
Major Mitchell had planned to intercept Yamamoto at 0935—they were one minute early. At 0934, one of the pilots said, “Bogeys, 11 o’clock high.” The intercept of the Japanese planes was an incredible feat of navigation and flying. There was one wrinkle, however: there were two bombers, not just one. What happened in the next several minutes has never been resolved satisfactorily to all those involved. Lanphier flew up to meet the descending Zeros and then turned over on his back and dove to attack one of the bombers. According to him, he shot off one of its wings. Meanwhile, Barber shot down another bomber from the rear, which crashed in the jungle. Then Barber attacked what seemed to be a third bomber, which crashed into the water. This third bomber was also attacked by Holmes and Hine. Hine did not return from the mission, and no one saw what happened to him. The top 12 P-38s flying cover did not see what had taken place below them. Upon returning to Guadalcanal, they claimed three bombers and three Zeros shot down. After the war, it was discovered from Japanese sources that there were only two bombers on the mission and that they had both been shot down, one crashing in the jungle and one crashing in the water off the coast. In addition, all the Zeros had survived.
Admiral Yamamoto was in the bomber that crashed in the jungle, and all on board died. Amazingly, three people, including Yamamoto’s chief of staff (Admiral Ugaki), survived the crash of the other bomber in the water. The day that Yamamoto was shot down—April 18—was exactly one year after Marc Mitscher launched the Doolittle Raiders off his carrier. When his staff drafted a message reporting the mission’s success to Admiral Halsey, he added: “April 18 seems to be our day.”
Admiral Mitscher left Guadalcanal in July 1943, turning over command to Nathan Twining, another WAHF inductee (1988). Mitscher returned to the Pacific in January 1944 to continue his illustrious career as the commander of a fast carrier task force. As a 4-star admiral commanding the Atlantic Fleet after the war, he died of a heart attack in 1947 at the age of 60. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery and was inducted into the WAHF in 2011.
Aftermath
A controversy began after the war and finally came to a head many years later. Who shot down Yamamoto? The basic question was whether Lanphier should be given sole credit, half credit, or no credit, with respect to shooting down Yamamoto’s plane. Lanphier was initially credited with a kill of one bomber. However, in 1978, the Air Force History Office published “USAF Historical Study No. 85: USAF Credits for the Destruction of Enemy Aircraft.” This study gave one-half credit each to Lanphier and Barber. The Air Force later established a Victory Credit Board of Review in 1985 to review the engagement, and again the review board gave half-credit to each pilot. Dissatisfied, Barber filed an application with the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records to obtain full credit. There were five members of the Board, and they voted as follows: two for half-credit for each pilot; two for full credit for Barber (but if there were no correction of record, then the case should be sent to a new Victory Credit Board for review); and one to refer the case to a Victory Credit Board.
Since Barber’s application did not receive a majority vote, the Secretary of the Air Force decided to examine the record himself, and he ruled in January 1993 to award half-credit to each pilot. Barber appealed the Secretary’s decision to the federal district court in Oregon, which ruled in favor of the Secretary of the Air Force. Barber appealed to the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; in March 1996, the court likewise upheld the Secretary’s decision.
The wreck of Yamamoto’s plane is still in the jungle on Bougainville. Henderson Field is now the international airport in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. As for Fighter No. 2, well, it is now a golf course.
