Target: Rabaul: The Allied Siege of Japan's Most Infamous Stronghold, March 1943–August 1945

By Bruce Gamble

A history of World War II’s Operation Cartwheel, a major Allied operation by US, Australian, and New Zealand forces to take the Japanese base at Rabaul.

Prior to World War II, few Americans had heard of Rabaul, a small harbor town in a far-off corner of the Pacific. But it became a household name after the Japanese captured Rabaul in January 1942 and developed it into their most heavily defended fortress outside the home islands. Thereafter, Rabaul endured Allied air attacks for a total of forty-four months—a span unmatched by any other locale during World War II.

In Target: Rabaul, respected military historian Bruce Gamble concludes his critically acclaimed trilogy about Japan’s most notorious stronghold. Picking up where Fortress Rabaul left off, Gamble narrates the story of Cartwheel, the multiple-operation plan that isolated Rabaul through aerial and naval siege. The effort, involving all of the armed branches of the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, resulted in some of the heaviest and most dramatic aerial combat of the Pacific war, with frequent clashes between hundreds of planes.

The culmination of an amazing story, Target: Rabaul profiles the resolve of the Allied and Japanese combatants in the horrific Pacific battleground—and provides the turbulent, triumphant conclusion to the most comprehensive account of World War II’s longest battle.

“Bruce Gamble has done it again! An impeccable researcher and a master storyteller with a keen eye for details and characters, Gamble presents Target: Rabaul, a powerful conclusion to his must-read trilogy on the battle over Japan’s Southwest Pacific stronghold. The heart-pounding stories of aerial combat read like a thriller—and show why he is one of the finest writers working today.” —James Scott, author of The War Below and The Attack on the Liberty

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781610589574

Book preview

Preface

THE BATTLE FOR Rabaul was World War II’s longest. Some historians might argue that the Battle of the Atlantic, from September 1939 to May 1945, was longer, and chronologically they have a point. But the campaign in the Atlantic covered an area of hemispherical proportions, with clashes occurring thousands of miles apart. Rabaul, a township of less than one square mile, was fought over from January 4, 1942 to August 15, 1945, a near-constant battle spanning almost forty-four months.

Before World War II, the islands of the South Pacific were as mysterious to most Americans as the dark side of the moon. Very few citizens had ever traveled to such remote places as the Solomon Islands or the Bismarck Archipelago, and hardly anyone had heard of Rabaul. What we knew of the South Pacific came from adventure movies, which typically portrayed the islands as dark and foreboding, with mist-shrouded volcanoes, thick jungles, wild animals, and headhunting savages.

The island of New Britain fit that stereotype. The northern end, where Rabaul is, has a long history of volcanic activity. The town lies inside the rim of a caldera, a vast depression mostly filled with seawater. The natural enclosure forms Simpson Harbor, one of the finest anchorages in the Pacific because of its natural protection by steep escarpments and volcanic peaks.

During the prewar years, Rabaul became a bustling, cosmopolitan trade center. Easily the largest town among the islands, it served as the capital of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. Dozens of plantations and church missions dotted the coastal areas, but beyond those small pockets of development, the island’s vast jungles remained wild. Some of the peoples living deep in the interior still practiced cannibalism and headhunting.

My personal interest in Rabaul developed when I began interviewing members of the Black Sheep squadron, VMF-214, who flew their hairiest combat missions over the Japanese stronghold in late 1943 and early 1944. Rabaul was so iconic that they had written songs about it. Wondering what made Rabaul so extraordinary, I began to research its history—and became hooked. I was especially drawn to the story of Lark Force and the tragic sinking of the Montevideo Maru.

While collecting the necessary research for a book, I thought I could narrate the story of Rabaul in a single volume. I was wrong. The tale of Lark Force occupied the first book, originally published as Darkest Hour. Next, I thought I could tackle the forty-four-month air war in a separate volume. Again, I was wrong. There was simply too much history to convey in one book. With the approval of the accommodating staff at Zenith Press, an agreement was reached to end the first volume, Fortress Rabaul, with the death of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a crucial turning point in the battle for the Southwest Pacific.

Finally, almost fifteen years after I began the initial research, the history is complete with the third volume of the trilogy, Target: Rabaul.

Or is it? As some readers will undoubtedly discover, I have glossed over segments of important battles that raged over and around Rabaul, paying scant attention to actions on New Ireland, New Georgia, and Bougainville, and barely touching on important campaigns in New Guinea. So there is still plenty of material to cover for as long as historians are interested in exploring the stories behind Japan’s most notorious stronghold in the South Pacific.

In the meantime, it is my fervent hope that the veterans who participated in the siege of Rabaul firsthand will find this work accurate and authentic. If so, I will have achieved my goal.

CONVENTIONS

Consistent with the first two books of the trilogy, time is expressed using the twenty-four-hour military clock, and distances are given in statute miles (unless otherwise noted). Japanese individuals are identified in the Western style with given name first, followed by the surname. Japanese aircraft are identified by the model/year designation and the Allied recognition code name.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am eternally grateful for the support of dozens of friends, colleagues, veterans, descendants, and enthusiasts who have provided assistance, both in the United States and abroad. Sadly, some have since passed away. But they leave an important legacy—their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews—who now carry the torch. The list of those who provided direct assistance, in alphabetical order: Dave Armstrong, Bill Barnett, Ed Bearss, Melvin Best, George Brewer, Ray Buckberry, Leslie Caruso, Michael Claringbould, Peter Cundall, Perry Dahl, Andy Decker, Rick Dunn, Andrew Frost, Mark Faram, Peter Figgis, Darryl Ford, Ken Gasteb, Bill Hess, Carlos Herrera, Curt Holguin, Dave Homewood, Maury Hurt, Sylvester Jackson, John Kepchia, Gerry Kersey, John Kinkaid, Marion Kirby, Bill Krantz, Jim Landsdale, Hap Langstaff, John Loisel, Jim Long, John Lundstrom, Marni Magda, Jim Mahaffey, Robert Marshall, Bruce Matheson, Lex McAulay, Jim McMurria, James Merriman, Joe Nason, Yoshio Okawara, Frank Olynyk, Jon Parshall, Edward Rogers, Luca Ruffato, Henry Sakaida, Jim Sawruk, John Stanaway, Al Sutton, Osamu Tagaya, Vic Tatelman, Justin Taylan, Barrett Tillman, Anthony Tully, Doug Vahry, Roger Vargas, Frank Walton, Bill Webster, Mike Wenger, Ron Werneth, Jay Wertz, David Wilson, Louise Wilson, and James Zobel.

It’s a long list that covers many years. If I’ve forgotten someone, please forgive me.

Finally, I wish to thank Erik Gilg, Editorial Director at Zenith Press, and Christine Zuchora-Walske for their patience and professionalism.

Prologue

THE PROMISE OF R&R in Sydney was a powerful incentive. To earn a week in Australia’s largest city, a crew had to complete twenty combat missions in their B-24 Liberators. Each sortie might last a grueling ten hours over some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth, and most of the targets were defended by aggressive Japanese fighter pilots and numerous antiaircraft weapons. But to the men of the 90th Bombardment Group (Heavy), a hedonistic week of bars and belles in Sydney was well worth the risks.

The twenty-mission policy, announced in January 1943, generated plenty of excitement among the group’s four squadrons. Since their arrival in Australia the previous November, the crews had suffered one catastrophe after another, losing eleven B-24s and eighty-four men. That most of the fatalities had resulted from accidents or unexplained disappearances, not combat, hung over the group like a curse. Weary in body and soul, the men needed something to look forward to—exactly the sort of motivation that a week of fun in Sydney would provide.

Their temporary home, an airfield slapped together in a remote section of Queensland, seemed conjured up from some alien landscape. Surrounded by murky tropical rainforests on the Cape York Peninsula, the isolated territory was known as Iron Range. There was no town, no village, no farmers or ranchers that I ever saw at Iron Range, recalled one pilot. There were some crude docking facilities in its sheltered harbor a few miles from the airstrip, but I never saw anyone tending them.

The base itself, although brand-new, was utilitarian—and utterly drab. When the crews weren’t flying or preparing for missions, they passed the time in their tents, waited in long lines for unappealing army chow, and obsessed about Sydney. There would be real beds with clean sheets in Sydney; restaurants, too, and nightclubs, and theaters. And all the liquor they could drink, and thousands of friendly women. For some crews, especially those nearing the magic number, the anticipation was almost overwhelming.

Group headquarters attempted to spread the combat assignments evenly among the four squadrons. For a week at a time, a squadron would deploy to the forward base at Port Moresby, New Guinea, and conduct a few missions. The rotation looked equitable on paper, but in practice the assignments were lopsided. On January 16, for example, the twelve crews of the 321st Squadron completed a week at Port Moresby and returned to Iron Range to learn that they would go back into combat three days later.

Some crews griped about the short turnaround; others saw opportunity. The squadron’s two most experienced crews had just completed nineteen missions, putting them on the cusp of the big prize. The commanding officer, Maj. Cecil L. Faulkner, led one. A lanky reservist, Lt. James A. McMurria, led the other. The competition between the crews to reach twenty missions was friendly, but spirited.

As ordered, Faulkner led his twelve Liberators back to New Guinea on the afternoon of January 19. At Ward’s Strip, carved from scrubby hills five miles from Port Moresby, the B-24s were parked in individual revetments, their earthen walls piled as high as the bombers’ twin tails. The nearest Japanese airfield was only 185 miles away, across the Owen Stanley Mountains. Port Moresby had already endured nearly one hundred raids, making it inevitable that formations of Mitsubishi twin-engine bombers would soon drone high overhead, or a covey of Zeros would swoop down the mountainside for a strafing attack.

Despite the threat, the men of the 321st were motivated to fly another week of missions. As the squadron’s operations officer, McMurria had Faulkner’s blessing to schedule his own crew for the first event, a solo reconnaissance of enemy shipping lanes between New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. After a predawn takeoff, McMurria’s crew would reconnoiter several Japanese strongholds, but there was little reason to expect trouble during the ten-hour circuit.

The weather was a different matter. A steady rain drenched the airdrome as McMurria and his copilot, Lt. Robert R. Martindale, began their preflight routine at 0400 on January 20. Inside the makeshift meteorological office, a bleary-eyed weather officer explained that heavy thunderstorms were blocking the preferred route over the mountains. It was off limits until daylight. Treacherous even in good weather, the mountains soared above thirteen thousand feet very near Port Moresby. Their slopes were already littered with many wrecked planes.

McMurria could neither proceed without the weatherman’s authorization nor tolerate an hours-long delay. He proposed an alternative. After taking off he would climb to the northwest, flying parallel to the mountains until the sun rose, at which time he could transit over the peaks safely. The sleepy meteorologist approved the plan, signed the necessary paperwork, and returned to his cot.

Joining the rest of the crew at their revetment, McMurria and Martindale inspected their bomber, a Consolidated B-24D Liberator, by flashlight. The four-engine aircraft was the heaviest land-based bomber in operation at that time. With a full combat load of bombs, machine-gun ammunition, fuel, and ten crewmen, it tipped the scales at twenty-eight tons. That weight rested on two large main wheels and a smaller nose wheel. On that dark, rainy morning, McMurria had to use full throttle on opposite sides to break the big bomber out of the muddy revetment.

After taxiing carefully into position on the downwind end of the duty runway, McMurria braked and waited for a flash of green light from the rickety control tower. He and Martindale peered through the dark windscreen. The rain-slicked runway, paved with interlocking steel planks, glistened in the beams of the B-24’s landing lights, but the wing-mounted lights barely cut through the rain. Two rows of flickering smudge pots along the edges of the runway provided the only other illumination.

The green light flashed and McMurria pushed the four throttles forward, revving the Pratt & Whitney engines to their combined maximum of 4,800 horsepower. Behind him, Sgt. Leslie H. Burnette, the flight engineer, monitored a panel of gauges—a half-dozen for each engine—for signs of trouble. McMurria released the brakes and the Liberator lurched forward, gaining momentum slowly.

Halfway down the runway, still well below takeoff speed, the wing lights picked up a disturbing sight: mud and gravel covered an area on the right side of the steel planking. The heavy rains had caused a washout. Moments later the landing gear plowed into the slurry, slewing the aircraft to the right. McMurria chopped the throttles and stood on the brakes, holding his breath while the heavy aircraft slid along the wet steel. The planking ended and the B-24 skidded into the overrun area, finally coming to a stop uncomfortably close to disaster.

After letting out a few expletives and regaining their composure, McMurria and Martindale carefully turned the Liberator around. Back on the steel mat, they taxied to the washout and stopped, letting the engines idle while they inspected the landing gear for damage. The skid had caused no harm, and only the right side of the runway was covered with sludge. McMurria was confident that he could get airborne on the next attempt, if he hugged the left side of the runway.

Twice previously, on rainy nights like this, the 90th Group had lost bombers and their entire crews to takeoff mishaps. The airfield duty officer arrived and offered to cancel the mission because of the close call; however, McMurria, with visions of Sydney dancing in his head, declined. Let’s go, he said.

And that was good enough for his crew.

This time, the B-24 lifted off normally. McMurria gave due respect to the mountains, keeping the craggy range off his right wing until the bomber climbed to twenty thousand feet. Over the northern highlands of New Guinea, the skies cleared. The crew began to relax as the sun warmed the Liberator’s interior.

Their first objective that morning was Wewak, a coastal settlement almost five hundred miles north of Port Moresby. Formerly the administrative headquarters of the Sepik District, the village had been occupied without a fight the previous month. Allied reconnaissance flights periodically monitored enemy activity, but the only noticeable changes thus far were improvements to the grass airstrip, previously used by a Roman Catholic mission.

Unknown to the Allies, Wewak was primed to become a key airbase complex for units of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF). In late December 1942, Imperial General Headquarters decided to reinforce Wewak and the village of Madang, two hundred miles to the south, with a full division each—one transferred from Korea, the other from North China. In a cooperative effort dictated by Tokyo, ships and aircraft of the Imperial Navy shepherded the convoys to New Guinea, and a small naval base force arrived to establish a civilian administration, or minsei-bu, at Wewak.

Unaware of these changes, McMurria began a gradual descent toward the northern coast of New Guinea. Approaching Wewak, where they anticipated only light antiaircraft fire from one known gun position, the crewmembers were stunned by the number of ships crowding the harbor. Even more disconcerting, some two dozen Japanese aircraft were parked wingtip to wingtip on the grass airstrip.

The B-24 had arrived just hours after the convoy dropped anchor in the harbor. Transports were already busy offloading troops of the 20th Infantry Division. A far bigger threat was posed by the fighters of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force (JNAF): twenty-one Type 0 carrier fighters, known universally as Zeros, had deployed to Wewak from the flattop Junyo. McMurria and Martindale counted at least six Zekes, the Allied recognition name for the model A6M2, taking off from the grass strip to intercept the Liberator.

McMurria was furious about the flawed intelligence. We were alone, he would later write, looking down at all those goddamn Japanese while supposedly flying a routine reconnaissance mission.

Outrage quickly gave way to instinct. Up in the bomber’s glass-paneled nose, 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 realistic chance 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 bomber’s speed. They finally reached the rain clouds, which proved pathetically small, hiding the aircraft for only a few seconds.

Unable to outrun the enemy, McMurria and his crew fought back. The left waist gunner, Pfc. Patsy F. Grandolpho, hollered on the intercom that he’d shot down a Zeke. No one else saw the action, nor could anyone confirm a second fighter claimed by Doyle, the bombardier, a few minutes later. The lack of witnesses supports the kodochosho (combat log) of the fighter detachment from Junyo, which lost no planes that day.

The Zekes continued swarming, nimble carnivores nipping at a crippled beast. Despite its great size, the B-24 shuddered from the impact of bullets and 20mm projectiles. One shell exploded in the nose compartment, puncturing a hydraulic reservoir. Buzzing shrapnel flayed Doyle’s back while he stooped to fire his machine gun. He staggered up to the flight deck, shocking the pilots with his gory appearance. A large chunk of flesh hung from his left shoulder, and his flight suit was soaked red. But the wound wasn’t life-threatening. Most of what stained Doyle’s flight suit turned out to be hydraulic fluid. Martindale ordered the navigator, Lt. Alston F. Sugden, to man Doyle’s machine gun. The running gunfight continued.

Another 20mm shell exploded at the rear of the fuselage, cutting control cables to the rudders and horizontal stabilizers. Out on the main wing, bullets shredded the fabric-covered ailerons. Unable to hold the wings steady, McMurria noted grimly that the ship was getting harder to fly. The Zekes made two more firing runs, knocking out another engine, after which the Liberator was nearly impossible to control. Smoking badly and losing altitude, the B-24 descended below a thousand feet—too low for anyone to bail out safely.

McMurria alerted the crew to prepare for ditching.

The men in the nose compartment were to move to the relative safety of the flight deck, but one did not comply. Private First Class Walter R. Erskine, manning a machine gun to fend off frontal attacks, was frozen to his .50-caliber and wouldn’t leave it, reported a crewmember. A nearly identical situation occurred in the rear compartment. While the tail gunner, ball turret gunner, and one of the side gunners moved to the forward bulkhead to brace for impact, Grandolpho held tightly to his waist gun. Described as looking extremely frightened, he refused to budge.

Up in the flight compartment, McMurria and Martindale struggled to control their faltering leviathan. For a few heart-stopping moments the B-24 staggered through the air, barely above stall speed. McMurria may have been the first to attempt a two-engine ditching in a B-24, and there was no way to finesse a water landing. With the bomber on the verge of a stall, McMurria lowered the nose and added power to gain speed, which gave him some control; then, at the last instant, he pulled the throttles to idle and hauled back on the control column, hoping to settle tail-first in a reasonably soft landing.

But a B-24 was almost impossible to ditch without major structural damage. The problem was the Liberator’s design, which combined a high main wing and a cavernous belly with flimsy bomb bay doors that slid open and closed on vertical tracks. During a water landing the doors invariably collapsed, often leading to the failure of the aft bulkhead in the bomb bay. It was not uncommon for B-24s to break in two on impact with the water.

McMurria’s Liberator struck the surface of Huon Gulf with a thunderous splash and promptly broke in half behind the main wing. The forward section, weighted by the main wing and four engines, sank immediately. The men on the flight deck, dazed by the impact, found themselves underwater and going down fast. McMurria crawled through his side window and ascended what felt like thirty or forty feet before surfacing. Only the tail section of the bomber remained afloat. Neither of the 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 from his 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

LIEUTENANT 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 airmen killed or missing.

The lopsided victory came at an opportune time for Kenney. Seven months earlier he had arrived in Australia to replace Lt. Gen. George H. Brett, sacked by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area, for substandard performance. Although a capable administrator, Brett had not demonstrated the loyalty that MacArthur demanded, nor had he earned the respect of the men who flew the missions. Most of the bombing raids he sent out were haphazard and ineffective. Brett’s reputation also suffered because he feuded openly with Brig. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, MacArthur’s irascible chief of staff. This wasn’t Brett’s fault: Sutherland tended to meddle with matters outside his bailiwick.

Unlike Brett, Kenney was a hands-on leader. A highly decorated pilot in World War I (and an accomplished engineer known for solving problems), Kenney earned a reputation as an innovator and an operator during the developmental years between the wars. The first to install machine guns in the wings of an aircraft, he also invented the parafrag: a small, parachute-retarded fragmentation bomb that could be released at low altitude without undue danger to the bomber’s crew.

Despite these credentials, MacArthur subjected Kenney to a long rant at their first meeting in Brisbane on July 28, 1942. Kenney sat for nearly an hour while the imperious general expounded on what was wrong with every aspect of the war—especially the air war. When the tirade finally spooled down, Kenney pledged his loyalty and promised to make immediate improvements. Encouraged by this, MacArthur said, I think we are going to get along all right.

Less than a week later, general headquarters (GHQ) issued detailed orders for a bombing mission against Rabaul—one that Kenney had already planned. A little sleuthing revealed that Sutherland had intervened. Kenney stormed into his office for a showdown. Although Kenney stood less than five and a half feet tall, he bawled out MacArthur’s chief of staff, growling that the top airman in the Southwest Pacific was not named Richard Sutherland, and that headquarters had better keep its nose out of his business. When Sutherland reacted defiantly, Kenney issued an all-or-nothing challenge: Let’s go in the next room and see General MacArthur and get this thing straightened out.

Sutherland, who relied on MacArthur as his source of power, backed down immediately. Thereafter, Kenney had no interference from Sutherland. As the alpha dog of the air program, Kenney enjoyed direct access to MacArthur and worked closely with him for the next two years.

More importantly, Kenney made good on his promises. In addition to visiting the forward airbases—which his predecessor had failed to do—Kenney rewarded his men for bravery and performance. Personnel regarded as ineffective, particularly officers in administrative positions that Kenney considered deadwood, were reassigned or sent packing. With a unique combination of energy and enthusiasm, he restored the morale of the air units almost singlehandedly.

Kenney also demonstrated improvisational brilliance. In late 1942, he turned conventional wisdom on its ear by using C-47 transports to airlift masses of supplies, equipment, and troops to remote airstrips in the mountains, ultimately helping win the battle for Buna.

Perhaps his best innovation, one that captured the imagination of the public back home, was skip bombing. When Kenney took over for Brett, only two heavy bomber groups were operational. Their performance had been disappointing—especially against enemy shipping. A proponent of aggressive, low-level tactics, Kenney worked out the techniques for attacking ships at extremely low altitude. With his aide, Maj. William G. Benn, he demonstrated that if an aircraft released a bomb while flying only fifty feet above the water, the bomb would skip off the surface like a flat stone before detonating against the side of the targeted ship. Kenney placed Benn in command of a B-17 squadron to teach the tactics to others. In time, the crews began using their four-engine Flying Fortresses like stealth bombers. On moonlit nights, they glided quietly down to the wave-tops and skipped their bombs into enemy ships with great success.

But the B-17s weren’t built for such tactics. Due to their enormous wingspan and cumbersome performance, they would have been shot out of the sky had they tried skip bombing in broad daylight. Committed to the concept, Kenney turned his attention on the more agile twin-engine planes in his inventory, the Douglas A-20 Havocs and North American B-25 Mitchells. He had Maj. Paul I. Pappy Gunn, a genius at field modifications, convert several bombers into commerce destroyers. With multiple heavy machine guns installed in the nose compartment and along the outside of the fuselage, the aircraft became highly effective gunships, yet they still retained the capability to drop bombs. Whether the planes skipped conventional bombs or scattered clusters of parafrags, the combination of low-level tactics and massed forward firepower proved devastating to enemy targets.

Within months, MacArthur regarded Kenney as his most important general. The two men differed dramatically in appearance and personality, yet their unique characteristics meshed almost perfectly. Each respected the other, both as military professionals and individuals. Kenney often dined with MacArthur, who occupied (with his wife, son, and Chinese amah), the top floor of the posh Lennons Hotel in Brisbane. When the war required them to visit the forward area, Kenney dined with MacArthur at Government House in Port Moresby. Their meals were often accompanied by spirited discussions on a broad range of political and socioeconomic topics. Sutherland usually participated as well, for he was never far from MacArthur’s side.

Following a dinner at Government House in late November 1942, the three generals debated the essential elements of democracy. MacArthur sided with Kenney on a particular argument, which irritated Sutherland. Seeing this, MacArthur teased him, The problem with you, Dick, is you’re a natural-born autocrat.

Embarrassed by his boss’s reference to his overbearing personality, Sutherland attempted to redirect MacArthur’s attention. What about George, here?

Oh, replied MacArthur with delight, George was born three hundred years too late. He’s just a natural-born pirate.

Coming from MacArthur, one of the twentieth century’s most compelling personalities, the remark became a source of pride for Kenney. MacArthur appreciated it, too. Whenever one of Kenney’s air units accomplished something praiseworthy, MacArthur would say, Nice work, Buccaneer.

As the war progressed, Kenney’s standing grew. When the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced an important conference in Washington, MacArthur sent Kenney as the senior envoy from SOWESPAC. Other GHQ staff, including Sutherland, would accompany Kenney to the event, billed as the Pacific Military Conference. Before the trip could get underway, however, Allied intelligence reported the formation of a large Japanese convoy at Rabaul. Kenney and his deputy commander, Brig. Gen. Ennis C. Whitehead, spent the next few days planning an attack on the convoy. The outcome in the Bismarck Sea was total victory, and Kenney’s reputation soared because much of the damage was achieved by his modified commerce destroyers. The low-level attackers had first shredded the enemy ships with machine-gun bullets, then skipped bombs into their hulls at point-blank range.

The battle was still winding down as the conference attendees prepared to leave Brisbane. By that time the outcome was assured, so Kenney woke MacArthur at 0300 on March 4 to inform him of the spectacular results. Despite the early hour, MacArthur was jubilant. He immediately drafted a congratulatory message to the air units: It cannot fail to go down in history as one of the most complete and annihilating combats of all time, he wrote. My pride and satisfaction in you all is boundless.

The words of praise from MacArthur were profound. By the time the conference delegates landed in Hawaii on March 6, news of the great victory preceded them. Although several GHQ staff were aboard the aircraft, the welcome committee at Hickam Field was there for Kenney. Among them, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz came out to shake Kenney’s hand and learn more about the battle.

Kenney soon discovered, however, that some of his hosts were skeptical of the published claims. On March 7, MacArthur had issued an official GHQ communiqué stating that the Battle of the Bismarck Sea had cost the Japanese three light cruisers, seven destroyers, twelve transports, ninety-five planes, and fifteen thousand troops. The figures almost certainly came from Kenney, based on unconfirmed reports from various squadrons during the early stages of the battle. Kenney habitually exaggerated his achievements—but he outdid himself on this occasion. Moreover, he refused to give ground. If challenged, he waved copies of operations reports as proof that the numbers were accurate.

What Kenney didn’t realize was that the victory needed no embellishment. In the wake of the U.S. Navy’s triumph at Midway nine months earlier, good news had been in short supply across the home front. The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was therefore hyped as one of the greatest victories of the war. In addition to receiving credit for the outcome, Kenney enjoyed a boost in status because of his innovative tactics.

After two days in Hawaii, Kenney and his entourage continued their trip, with overnight stops in California and Ohio, before reaching Washington on the afternoon of March 10. Their timing was perfect. Newspaper headlines across the country hailed the recent victory, and Kenney allowed himself to enjoy the attention briefly. I’m a big shot, he confided in his diary, for a while anyhow.

When the conference began the next morning, Kenney discovered that he was surrounded by heavier brass.* All four service chiefs—Gen. Henry H. Hap Arnold (U.S. Army Air Forces), Gen. George C. Marshall (U.S. Army), Adm. Ernest J. King (U.S. Navy), and Adm. William D. Leahy (Chief of Staff)—attended the opening session. Several representatives from the South Pacific were also present to assure that Vice Adm. William F. Bull Halsey, commander of the South Pacific Area (SOPAC), got an appropriate slice of the procurement pie.

After a few opening remarks, the Joint Chiefs departed for their various offices, leaving the real work of the conference to their high-ranking subordinates. Kenney discovered that his Bismarck Sea fame meant little to these underlings, who seemed to take satisfaction in denying his requests for more men, airplanes, and supplies. Kenney wasn’t the only frustrated commander. The Germany-first policy, agreed upon by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill a year earlier, had severely restricted the pipelines to the Pacific. None of the commanders in the theater, including MacArthur, had been able to obtain more than a trickle of equipment, weapons, or personnel. This was precisely why MacArthur sent Kenney to Washington: the conference presented the best opportunity for the Pacific commanders to voice their collective needs. If Kenney hoped to successfully prosecute the air war in the Southwest Pacific Area, he would have to argue, cajole, beg, borrow, or steal whatever he could get. As the negotiating dragged on, the pressure increased dramatically.

By the end of the second day, Kenney was fed up with all the politicking that slowed the acquisition process. He wasn’t naive—one did not reach flag rank without awareness that favoritism occurred at various levels of the army hierarchy—but he was amazed at the amount of political maneuvering that infected the War Department. That night, he wrote in his diary:

Judge [Robert P.] Patterson, Assistant Secretary of War … is definitely on my side and wants to help in any way to get me some aircraft. He even offered to take the matter up with the President. I asked him not to as I don’t want to go over Arnold’s head unless I can’t get anything any other way. Assist. Secretary for Air [Robert A.] Lovett and [Maj. Gen.] Oliver Echols would both like to help out too but have to take orders from Arnold, who in turn has to deal with the JCS, who get orders from the Combined Chiefs of Staff with the President and Winston Churchill also concerned. Once in a while the Russians put their demands in the pot with threats to get out if they are not met. No wonder Napoleon said he’d rather fight Allies than any single opponent.*

Despite his best attempts, Kenney continued to be stonewalled. Everyone really stubborn about giving me airplanes, even replacements for my losses, he noted after the third day of the conference. He tried every angle, even issuing a stern warning that the Fifth Air Force would be run out of New Guinea without adequate support, but his arguments were ignored. Galled by the petty rivalries and personal ambitions of the second-tier flag officers, Kenney observed army and navy officers clashing repeatedly, and concluded that it was nearly impossible for the JCS to reach a decision. They tended to back their assistants, who couldn’t agree on anything, which put the problem back on the Joint Chiefs.

Kenney finally managed to score a few points. During a meeting in Arnold’s office, Kenney requested that any B-25s allotted to SOWESPAC undergo factory modifications to the same specifications as his commerce destroyers. A couple of supply types from the Material Division snorted at this, and advised Arnold that such modifications were not only impractical, but they would disturb the balance of the airplane and make it almost impossible to fly. Kenney pointed out that twelve B-25s, field-modified in Australia, had ruined the Japs in the Bismarck Sea. Arnold not only tossed the stuffed shirts out of his office, but told them angrily to quit arguing.

Despite this small victory, Kenney still struggled to get the planes, personnel, spare parts, and supplies he needed. He decided that if his victory in the Bismarck Sea didn’t count for much inside the War Department, he would take advantage of his newfound fame outside the conference rooms. Opportunities in the public sector abounded. During his stay in Washington he hobnobbed with some of the most influential people in America, including a luncheon on March 14 with publishers Henry and Clare Boothe Luce. The next evening, Kenney dined with Arde Bulova, chairman of the famous watch company. Kenney asked Bulova to donate one hundred gold watches, explaining that they would be given to outstanding crew chiefs, who didn’t qualify for the combat medals that fliers received. Bulova not only agreed, but added personalized watches for Kenney, MacArthur, and their wives. (Delivered a few days later, Kenney’s watch was inscribed: To Buccaneer, as a token of my admiration and respect, Arde Bulova.)

The public events provided momentum. On March 17, Kenney received the mother of all invitations: to visit the White House. He and Sutherland enjoyed a brief chat with Roosevelt, who listened raptly to the story of the Bismarck Sea. The president, who had undoubtedly been receiving details about the conference, asked Kenney if he was having any luck procuring planes. Using a common colloquialism of the day, Kenney told him no soap.

The official visit soon ended, but a few minutes later Kenney alone was called back to the Oval Office. Roosevelt had instructed his military secretary, Gen. Edwin M. Pa Watson, to clear several appointments. Roosevelt gave Kenney his undivided attention for an hour. The opportunity was beyond Kenney’s wildest hopes. Roosevelt asked for a detailed briefing on SOWESPAC, which Kenney enthusiastically provided—emphasizing the crucial, still-evolving role of air power. He found the president easy to talk to, and surprisingly familiar with the geography of that part of the world. When Kenney finished, Roosevelt smiled and pointed to a tablet, saying: Write down on this pad what you need. Be reasonable about it, and I’ll see what I can do, even if I have to argue with the whole British Empire about it.

Kenney left the meeting hugely impressed. The Roosevelt charm is no myth, he wrote. I believe he is going to get me some airplanes.

Kenney was right. A few days later, Roosevelt called Arnold into the Oval Office for a discussion. Of equal importance, Kenney was featured on the March 22 front cover of Life, America’s most popular weekly magazine. Henry Luce, the magazine’s editor, described Kenney as one of the great aerial tacticians of the war … successful in the South Pacific in spite of a relatively small number of planes. That same day, Arnold sent for Kenney and informed him that he had squeezed everything dry to give SOWESPAC more planes. The Fifth Air Force would get another heavy bomb group, two medium bomb groups, two fighter groups, a new troop carrier group, and assorted odds and ends. Justifiably proud, Kenney gave a nod to his Pacific theater rivals. SOPAC will have to get some aircraft too to keep peace in the family, he noted, but I’m supposed to get the real increase.

Although Kenney expected to see the Fifth Air Force grow by five hundred aircraft, the challenge would be integrating mismatched types. For example, one promised fighter group was equipped with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, a massive single-engine aircraft that, according to Kenney, no one else wanted. The other unit flew the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, a twin-engine fighter that Kenney was much more familiar with. The two aircraft used completely different engines and had no structural parts in common; therefore, spare parts and maintenance could not be shared. But Kenney was a realist. Having put so much effort into acquiring whatever he could get, he jumped at the chance to take the P-47 outfit, the 348th Fighter Group, off someone else’s hands.

On March 25, Kenney was back in the White House, this time for a solemn event. Two months earlier, Brig. Gen. Kenneth N. Walker had participated in a daylight bombing raid on Rabaul, despite Kenney’s repeated orders to stop flying combat missions. The head of V Bomber Command, Walker had further risked censure by altering Kenney’s strike plan from a dawn attack to a daylight raid. Kenney was infuriated to learn that his subordinate had violated two separate orders, and subsequently informed MacArthur that he was not only going to reprimand Walker, but suspend him for a couple of weeks. Then came word that Walker’s B-17 had not returned from the mission. After an exhaustive search turned up no sign of the bomber or its crew, the focus on Walker shifted from punishment to appreciation. MacArthur recommended him for a Medal of Honor, which Congress approved on March 11. Two weeks later, Kenney attended the ceremony in the Oval Office and watched Roosevelt give the medal posthumously to Walker’s oldest son. Impressed with the president’s sincerity and kindness in putting the teenager at ease, Kenney noted in his diary that FDR really did a swell job.

After the presentation, Roosevelt asked Kenney to stay behind. He was eager to know whether Kenney was satisfied with the proposed aircraft arrangement. Kenney answered truthfully that he’d always want additional planes, even if he got a million more. Careful not to sound ungrateful, Kenney reassured the president that he was pleased about the planes he’d been promised. Chuckling at this, Roosevelt replied: I’ll be watching [for] the results.

Kenney undoubtedly felt immense satisfaction after his second meeting with the president, but the following day brought unsettling news from Arnold. Ten thousand miles away, the man who had replaced Walker had gone missing. After climbing aboard a B-17 at Port Moresby for a reconnaissance flight on the morning of March 26, Brig. Gen. Howard K. Ramey and his crew had vanished. That it happened on the same day as Walker’s posthumous ceremony (it was still March 25 in Washington) was downright bizarre. Ramey’s loss a bad one, Kenney wrote that night. Bomber command needs a good steady hand to keep their heads up and morale high. Their losses are higher than any other outfit, and when a plane goes down it takes a big crew with it.

The next day, Kenney requested Col. John H. Big Jim Davies, an old hand in New Guinea and a former commander of the 3rd Bomb Group, as Ramey’s replacement. He then wired Brigadier General Whitehead, who commanded the Advanced Echelon (ADVON) at Port Morseby, and instructed him to take over V Bomber Command for the interim.

Ramey’s disappearance clouded what had otherwise been a highly successful trip. Kenney had visited twice with President Roosevelt and was featured on the oversize cover of Life magazine. For a short time, he was a celebrity. But those were niceties. Kenney had traveled to Washington for one reason: to obtain more airplanes, personnel, and the other assets necessary to fight the Japanese. The outcome of the conference, thanks to the president’s influence, had exceeded Kenney’s expectations. Of at least equal importance, he had improved his standing with the head of the army air forces, Hap Arnold.

In the months and years to come, the benefits of the long trip to Washington would help Kenney win the air war in his far-flung corner of the Pacific.

*The Pentagon was not yet operational. The five-sided monstrosity had been completed just two months earlier, and the War Department still worked out of cramped offices in the Munitions Building on Constitution Avenue.

*Lovett’s official title was Undersecretary of War for Air. Echols, the chief procurement officer for the Army Air Forces, was primarily responsible for the phenomenal increase in the production of aircraft during World War II.

CHAPTER 2

Steppingstones: The Elkton Plan

WHILE KENNEY WORKED on obtaining planes and personnel, Sutherland was responsible for presenting MacArthur’s strategic plans for the coming year to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The stakes were high, but Sutherland enjoyed MacArthur’s absolute confidence, was authorized to open and read all his incoming mail and messages (even those marked Eyes Only), and answered most of them in MacArthur’s stead. For all practical purposes, Sutherland was MacArthur, or at least his alter ego in GHQ—an arrangement that served both men equally. As far as the Joint Chiefs were concerned, Sutherland’s presence at the conference carried the same weight as if MacArthur himself were there.

The strategic plans that Sutherland would present on behalf of GHQ could be traced back some thirteen months. In January 1942, mere weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral King had begun pressing for a counteroffensive in the Pacific theater. King’s persistence eventually got results. On February 1, two carrier groups were sent from Hawaii to attack Japanese facilities in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. Although the raids caused little material damage, they embarrassed Imperial General Headquarters. Shortly thereafter, King authorized a third task force to venture deep into enemy waters for a strike against Rabaul. That effort, scheduled for the morning of February 21, was called off after Japanese flying boats discovered USS Lexington and Task Force 11 four hundred miles from Rabaul.

Another opportunity to hurt the Japanese arose a few weeks later, resulting in a highly successful strike by the combined air groups of Lexington and Yorktown. On the morning of March 10, the aircraft crossed the Owen Stanley Mountains and surprised a Japanese invasion fleet at Lae, sinking three big transports and damaging several warships. In addition to giving the home front a much-needed morale boost, the attack caused Tokyo more embarrassment.

One key to the raid’s success was an intelligence breakthrough. Partial decryption of intercepted messages, sent via the Imperial Navy’s primary code (labeled JN-25 by the Allies), yielded the information needed to plan and execute a successful attack. Furthermore, the important role played by cryptanalysis led to a renewed frenzy in code-breaking efforts over the next several weeks.

The art of creating intelligence reports based on analyzing decrypted intercepts, known as Ultra, evolved rapidly. By mid-April 1942, the Allies pieced together the details and name of a major offensive. With the dual-pronged MO Operation, the Japanese planned to invade Port Moresby and the southern Solomon Islands in early May. But Ultra enabled Allied naval units and land-based bombers to intervene, culminating in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Although a tactical draw, the historic clash on May 7-8 forced the Japanese to cancel the invasion of Port Moresby. The last Australian outpost in New Guinea was saved.

Within a month, further refinement of Ultra aided Admiral Nimitz’s triumph over the Kido Butai, Japan’s mobile carrier striking force, at Midway. Mere days after that decisive victory, MacArthur surprised Washington by requesting permission to launch an offensive against Rabaul.

As later described in the U.S. Army’s official history of the war, MacArthur not only hoped to capitalize on the victory at Midway, but he intended to secure additional assets.

The smoke of battle had scarcely cleared when General MacArthur took the center of the stage with an urgent appeal for an immediate offensive to exploit the opportunity presented by the Japanese defeat. What he had in mind was … a full-scale assault against New Britain and New Ireland to gain control of Rabaul and the strategic Bismarck Archipelago. If his superiors in Washington would give him, in addition to the three divisions he already had, a division trained for amphibious operations (presumably marines) and the two carriers he had asked for so often, he was ready, he announced, to move out immediately. With confidence, he predicted he would quickly recapture the Bismarcks and force the Japanese back to Truk, 700 miles away, thus winning manifold strategic advantages both defensive and offensive and making further potential exploitation immediately possible.

Army planners in Washington received the audacious plan favorably. But MacArthur was dangerously overconfident. His experience in the Philippines notwithstanding, he had not yet discovered the tenacity with which the Japanese would defend a piece of ground—a lesson soon to be learned on Guadalcanal. Nor did he fully comprehend the horrors of prolonged jungle warfare, which would be revealed at Buna and Bougainville and plenty of other nightmarish campaigns. Moreover, those battlegrounds were lightly fortified in comparison to the defenses at Rabaul.

AS THE MILITARY hub of what the Japanese called the Southeastern Area, Rabaul was already well on its way to becoming a megafortress.

Reviews for Target

[alco261 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Target Rabaul is the third and final book of Mr. Gamble’s history of the battle of Rabaul. The duration of the battle was that of the Second World War (1941-1945). The author’s first book (Darkest Hour – reissued as Invasion Rabaul) spanned 1941-1942. The second (Fortress Rabaul) recounted the events of 1942-1943 and this volume covers the period from mid-1943-to the end of the war in 1945. The battle of Rabaul raged for the entirety of World War II and there were many distinct phases to the battle. In each of his books Mr. Gamble’s approach to recounting this complex history is to repeatedly cycle the narrative from the general to the specific. The result is a series of “sub-histories” within each volume. Each opens with a general, overarching, presentation of the situation at a given point in time, shifts to a discussion of high level decisions concerning strategy and tactics, segues into a description of what those decisions meant to the squadrons/units involved in the attacks and then shifts to descriptions of individual plane/person accounts of the events of a specific engagement. This approach is very effective. It allows the reader to comprehend the battle in all of its complexity. One small detail which, for me, epitomizes the author’s skill in providing a history that strikes a good balance between the general and the specific is the facts in this third volume which pertain to the photograph on the cover of the second volume - Fortress Rabaul. The picture is that of a B-25 under fire roaring across Simpson Harbor during the 2 November 1943 attack. That picture has been reprinted numerous times and can be found in any number of books about the air war in the Pacific. Fortress Rabaul, if you will, provided the general and Target Rabaul (in the photograph section) provided the details – the pilot was Richard Hastings and he not only outlived the day he outlived the war as well. Target Rabaul details the initial plans for the proposed invasion of Rabaul and how those plans changed from one of invasion to one of neutralization and bypassing . The various small and large scale attacks and their results are recounted as are the sacrifices of planes and individuals. In this final volume Mr. Gamble also provides the grim details of the fate of the vast majority of the Allied flyers who became Japanese prisoners of war. Appendix A lists the names of 138 Allied flyers known to have been seen alive at Rabaul. Of those 26 were transported to Japan and survived the war- only 8 of the remaining 104 survived at Rabaul – the rest were executed. I think Target Rabaul is well written and I think it and the other two volumes about the battle for Rabaul will appeal to anyone interested in the history of that World War II Pacific Theater battle.