In May 1945, both the US Army Air Force and US Navy anti-shipping PBY4s received orders to keep aircraft on alert in order to bomb Marcus Island on short notice. The goal was that they would be able to takeoff within an hour notice to attack Marcus Island with low level bombing attacks. The US Navy PBY4s, trained in the low level attacks on shipping, flew one low level missions from the Mariannas, with disastrous results. The Army Air Force, trained to fly bombing missions at mid to high altitudes, drug their feet on these type of missions. They made half-hearted attempts at low level bombing, but always climbed to altitude for the bomb run on Marcus Island. They never flew one low level as they perceived such tactics as suicidal. The Japanese anti-aircraft gunners on Marcus Island had the reputation as the most accurate in the Pacific.
Following is an account of Lt Omer C. Kemp, a B24 pilot assigned to the 494th Bombardment Group (H) at Anguar Island, who was sent to Guam to fly these missions.
The 494th Bombardment Group was the last B24 bomb group to be stood up in WW2 and was sent to the Pacific in September 1944. Formed in December, 1943, at Wendover Field, Utah, they were under the command of Colonel Laurence B. Kelley and became known as “Kelley’s Kobras”. There were four squadrons assigned to the 494th, each consisting of 15-20 B-24s: 864th, 865th, 866th, and 867th Bombardment Squadrons. Assigned to 7th Air Force, they began arriving on Anguar Island in September 1944 and by the end of the year, 3000 men were living on the island. Their primary targets were the Philippines, Truk, and the Palaus. In May, 1945, the 494th Bombardment Group sent ten planes with crews to Guam to supplement the other two B24 groups (11th BG and 30th BG) in attacks on Marcus Island and Truk atoll.
Here is Lt Kemp’s account of flying the B-24 “Rover Boy’s Baby” on May 1, 1945 in a 16 plane mission to bomb Marcus Island from Guam. (Excerpt from his son’s book, FLAK PAK)
“We were staging through Depot Field in Guam against by-passed islands which needed a good going over. The previous days we had hit Truk atoll twice with a perfect score – no flak holes – and were ready for Marcus, a tiny island farther from land than any other island in the Pacific. It was hardly bigger than the chevron-shaped air field on it, and if you could locate it, it made a very satisfying target. But finding it was always a problem.
Our planes did not have radar and since there was no LORAN signal coming from Marcus, we had to navigate by celestial observation, risky because the tiniest error over 1,000 miles could mean missing the target by 50 miles. But Fred Sperling was our navigator and we were not worried. (we should have been, though what happened that day was no fault of Fred’s)
But finding Marcus was just the first problem. Once found, we would face what were reported to be the most accurate flak batteries in the entire Pacific. Some of Japan’s best gunners must have been stuck out there on that lonely coral triangle with nothing to do but shoot B24s out of the sky. And they had done it more than once
Our element of five Liberators (out of a flight of 16) left Guam at 7:00 am. (Six were scheduled but one had problems with his #3 engine and aborted.)
About two hours into the flight, huge storm clouds rose before us. The other thirteen planes went into the typhoon but Lt Altman, our element leader, decided to go around. I wasn’t happy about skirting the storm, which would cost precious time and fuel, but in the Air Force you follow the leader. “We’re right behind you.” I said and eased Rover Boy’s Baby into a gentle right bank.
As we rounded the storm, which towered over us like immense breaking waves, we scanned the air for the rest of the mission aircraft and the ocean for Marcus. We saw neither. Dead reckoning indicated we were about fifteen minutes out. We should be seeing it by now but it was nowhere in sight. Just then Altman called, saying his navigator’s sextant had gone out and asked if Fred could get a fix on where we were.
While Fred searched for a patch of blue in the clouds above us for a sighting, I banked gently, starting a “square search”, a kind of widening spiral where each revolution is five miles bigger than the previous one, searching for Marcus. But there were just as many clouds below us as above. It was starting to look hopeless when the interphone crackled. “Captain, ” said Fred, anger heating his words, “We’re twenty miles west of the target.”
I asked engineer Juan Gutierrez how we looked for fuel. “Not good, ” he said. “we used up a lot going around the storm.”
“How much left?” I persisted.
“Less than a third.”
“And we’re not even to the target!” someone said.
“Quiet!” I said, trying unsuccessfully to keep my voice calm. “We’re almost there. Bombing stations.”
I relayed the information to Altman and we both turned eastward. Within minutes we were socked in again and Altman’s plane, which had been off my left wing, had disappeared in the clouds.
As we approached the target, I silently calculated our odds of getting home and when I glanced over at Oly I saw his face change from concern to alarm. He’d read my thoughts in my eyes. “Lose the bombs, lose two tons,” I said, turning and staring straight ahead.”
“Ton and a half,” said Oly, leaning the engines.
I rested my hand on the bomb bay door lever, ready to salvo our bombs and go home, when Jack Berger, our bombardier, said, “I see it.”
“Where?” I asked. We were enveloped in clouds; I couldn’t see a thing out my window.
“It’s gone now.,” said Jack. “Socked in again.”
“Well,” I said. “Given it your best guess.”
“Guessing,” said Jack, and suddenly our aircraft shot upward, released from our heavy bomb load.
Suddenly Alman’s planed filled my left window, so close I could see the startled expression on his co-pilot’s face. I hauled the yoke back and to the right, and we narrowly avoided a midair collision. In another second he was gone, hidden again by the clouds.
“Holy cow!” said Oly.
“Let’s get out of here” I said, and put the plane into a steep right bank. I was about to ask Fred for a vector when he spoke first: “Bearing one eight zero, distance niner seven zero miles, Skipper. Let’s go home.”
“Okay, boys,” I said, “Let’s lighten this bird.”
Out went the ammunition, the waist guns, and the oxygen tanks. If we could have pried off the belly turret, it would have gone too. Each pound we dropped gave us another minute, but we soon ran out of things to drop out the bomb bay doors. I cautioned the men to not throw the life rafts overboard. Someone laughed but I wasn’t joking.
I raised the nose to a near stalling speed of 135 mph; cruise is around 160. After a long stretch, we emerged from the clouds. There were no other planes anywhere. The sun was setting in the west. Oly and I took our headsets off and started talking quietly between ourselves. Should we bail out and hope we’d be found or risk a night ditching?
I told Cal Morrow, our radio operator, to contact the Navy and give them the scoop. There must be Navy ships down there somewhere. He got a hold of them and the Navy said they’d track us and send up a Dumbo if we had to ditch.
I did not want to ditch; I’d heard too many horor stories about rought seas and cartwheeling airplanes, killing everyone on board. No, we would hazard it to Saipan, which would shave an hour from our flight. If we made it that far.
I asked Gutierrez about our fuel situation. “The sight gauges are just as inaccurate now as they were five minutes ago, sir,” he said, “They show twenty five for each engine.”
A B24 burns 100 gallons an hour. Didn’t Fred say we were still 200 miles out?
“Anything else we can throw out?” I asked.
“How about Trasatti?” said someone.
“Hey!” said our tail gunner.
The Sun had set and Oly and I dimmed the instrument panel and peered into the darkness. Wih no moon, we could not tell where the sea ended and the sky began. Occasionally we’d see a light on the ocean but it would turn out to be a fishing boat or our imagination. Finally, we saw a string of lights on the horizon that had to be Saipan. (Like I said, we trusted Fred.)
If oxygen were fuel, we wouldn’t have used an ounce those last fifteen minutes – everyone held their breath. Morrow contacted the Saipan tower, saying casually, “We’re kind of low on fuel, so don’t let anybody jump in line in front of us.”
That drew nervous laughter from the crew.
I lined up the approach and heaved a sigh of relief as we passed over the fluorescent surf just fifty feet below us. When our wheels hit the coral runway with that familiar nails-on-chalkboard screech, everyone breathed again. I taxied to the apron and braked to a stop. Oly cut the engines. Soon we were enveloped in darkness and silence. I shivered, a bead of sweat trickling slowly down my spine.
Then we heard sirens and in a minute we were surrounded by fire trucks and emergency vehicles, followed by a lumbering fuel truck. We got out of the plane, its aluminum skin reflecting in the trucks’ headlights. I flexed my knees, feeling the firmness of the taxiway under my feet. Yes, we were alive.
Suddenly everyone was lighting up and the fuel crew was shooing the smokers away from the plane. As we stood in the darkness watching them fuel Rover Boy’s Baby, the same unspoken questions was on everyone’s mind.
When they finally coiled the black-ribbed hose onto the rear of the truck, the fuel boss walked toward me, filling out a form on his clipboard. “Didn’t know they held that much,” he said, handling me the receipt and giving me a you-are-one-lucky-son-of-a-gun look.
“Three thousand two hundred nineteen gallons,” said Oly, reading over my shoulder. “Oh my Lord.”
“Just twenty five left,” whistled Gutierrez.
I smiled, “That ‘s fifteen minutes’ worth. you call that close?”
Nine guys glared at me.
Back on Anguar, they’d given us up for dead but when we radioed that we’d made it to Saipan safely, they planned a warm welcome for us. When we returned to our base on Anguar a few days later, three thousand men lined the runway, cheering and saluting us. Crew 23A and Rover Boy’s Baby had made it home.
