[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 68 (Thursday, May 26, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       INCENDIARY BOMBS TO RABAUL

                                 ______


                         HON. ROBERT K. DORNAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 26, 1994

  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, a large group of Congressmen leave for 
Europe next Tuesday to pay their respects to American fighting men in 
celebration of the 50th anniversary of the breakout from Anzio Beach 
Head and the liberation of Rome, June 4, 1944 and, of course, the 50th 
anniversary of the D-day invasion at Normandy, June 6, 1944.
  However, we're also passing through the 50th anniversaries of deadly 
struggles in the South Pacific. Imperial Japan fought a tenacious 
struggle along the entire north coast of New Guinea and their major 
naval base at Rabaul on the island of New Britain including many hard-
fought aerial battles overhead.
  Lt. Col. Walter A. Krell, of the 22d Bomb Group, the first medium 
bomber group to arrive in the Pacific, wrote a letter 50 years ago 
describing just one exciting and deadly mission. I've worn his same 
small St. Christopher medal through two very harrowing ejections from 
crippled jet fighters.
  Colonel Krell had that medal on every combat flight totaling over 100 
combat missions. I submit his heroics today for the Record.


       incendiary bombs to rabaul--lt. col. walter a. krell, ret.

       In early 1942, Army Air Force Ordnance developed an aerial 
     incendiary bomb, a device four-feet long and 16 inches or so 
     in diameter. It consisted of 36 individual incendiary units, 
     tiny bomblets with fins and detonators all wired together. 
     The entire bundle, or contained unit, was attached to the 
     shackles on our Martin B-26 Marauder bomb bay racks like an 
     ordinary bomb, to be released in the standard way. Each B-26 
     would carry 30 or more incendiary clusters.
       There was one simple difference between high-explosive 
     bombs and incendiary bombs. When the arming wire was pulled 
     away upon release of these new incendiaries, a shotgun shell 
     would fire a slug that would cut the wires holding together 
     the bundle of bomblets. Then the 36 individual bomblets would 
     break up, releasing each separate incendiary unit to fall on 
     the target. The arming wire was supposed to be of sufficient 
     length to allow the incendiary mother-bomb to clear the 
     aircraft before the arming wire pulled loose and fired the 
     shotgun shell thereby dispersing the cluster. Of course, 
     nobody bothered to tell that to the B-26 aircrew/gunners who 
     helped with bomb loading, so they routinely clipped the wire 
     short as was done with ordinary iron bombs. The result was 
     that upon ``bombs away'', the clusters came apart while still 
     within our bomb bays, clattering around and bouncing off the 
     structural members of our aircraft. These incendiary bomblets 
     were magnesium, and had any of them lodged in the many 
     angular recesses of the fuselage, it would have been very 
     exciting indeed.
       When I experienced the first release of incendiaries my B-
     26 was flying only 15 feet above those powerful little 
     bomblets tumbling away, when many of them began igniting and 
     burning. After that, the bomb loading of incendiaries had the 
     undivided attention of our entire crew of six.
       Now that we, in the 22d Bomb Group, had such interesting 
     new bombs, it was decided that they should be delivered all 
     over the docking facilities at Rabaul. The first mission to 
     try to do just that would be a flight of three Marauders. Lt. 
     Chris Herron would lead and Lt. George Kersting would be 
     flying his right wing with me on his left. After an early 
     morning take-off from 7-Mile Airfield near Fort Moresby, New 
     Guinea our Marauders flew northeast, climbed over the Owen-
     Stanley Mountains, descended over the north coast of New 
     Britain, and then turned east to Rabaul Harbor. Unhappily, 
     for an undetermined cause, gasoline siphoned from my right 
     wing tanks for a full 45 minutes after take-off. Because we 
     never returned home from those long Rabaul missions with much 
     fuel to spare, my crew was obviously worried. To turn back, 
     however, would have aborted the raid for the other two crews. 
     We flew on.
       Chris Herron was clever the way he took us in to the 
     target. Still heading east, we kept descending and skirted 
     the north side of the Rabaul harbor at low level, then banked 
     right and pulled into a hard 180-degree turn up and over the 
     rim of the volcanic hills that circle the harbor on the north 
     side. I remember clearly from my left-wing position in our 
     very tight turn, looking to my right across Herron's B-26 and 
     seeing George Kersting's propwash mash down the tops of 
     coconut trees. Chris then rolled us out right down on the 
     deck and along the wharfs, and headed west.
       There was a Japanese cargo vessel tied up broadside along 
     the first dock with dozens of loading personnel moving about 
     on the freighter's deck and at dockside. All of them were 
     totally surprised. I vividly remember their reaction of 
     panic. Two Japanese loaders were carrying something up a 
     gangplank that resembled a litter. Suddenly they dropped the 
     litter and while the guy in the back was still looking up, 
     the guy in front wheeled around and charged back, right over 
     the top of the litter thing, and slammed into the guy staring 
     up at us.
       I could see that Lt. Herron intended to try to take out 
     this ship which was positioned parallel to our line of 
     flight. This would have forced me to waste my bombs out in 
     the open harbor to my left, so I dropped down and moved ahead 
     of Chris and took the lead, forcing our formation to the 
     right over the docking area with its stacked supplies and 
     many warehouses. ``Bombs away.'' I immediately banked left 
     and headed south toward the Rabaul channel and away from the 
     exploding docks, thinking Herron and Kersting would hang onto 
     my right wing until we were clear and I could slide back into 
     position. Chris apparently went his own way, but in my left 
     turn I couldn't see where he was. Not wanting to roll back 
     into him, I continued my hard turn yelling to my co-pilot 
     to try and spot the formation. I was now heading back 
     around toward the east rim of the harbor with anti-
     aircraft flak popping all around us and some of it 
     starting to explode much too close.
       I twisted my Marauder back and forth to foil the A/A 
     gunners until I was back across the harbor east rim and above 
     an active smoking volcano. In spite of this fast moving 
     action, I was fascinated by the volcano's shimmering silvery 
     walls as I pushed over and dipped down inside the crater 
     itself. I banked again changing course back to the right and 
     then flew up and over the volcano's western lip.
       There below, streaking out through the Rabaul Channel at 
     deck level, were Herron and Kersting, so I winged over and 
     swooped down to join up. We were back in three ship ``V'' 
     formation just as the Japanese Navy Zeroes jumped us. It was 
     touch and go for about 20 minutes when straight ahead loomed 
     a sheer wall of thick clouds, black with torrential rain. We 
     spread out and plunged into the weather, very happy to wipe 
     off the swarming enemy fighters. Tropical fronts were not new 
     to the pilots of our bomb group, but never before had we 
     encountered anything to equal the intensity of this storm.
       Within minutes our 2000 horsepower radial engines started 
     to run roughly because of the excessive cooling of the heavy 
     rain. The rain water was also driving into the magnetos which 
     are mounted up forward on the Pratt and Whitney engines. We 
     closed our oil shutters and cowl flaps but that didn't seem 
     to help much. In most South Pacific rain storms, we found 
     there was usually a clear gap for your aircraft to fly 
     between the ocean and the bottom layer of the weather front. 
     But not this time. In order to see, so I could stay above the 
     waves, I was aided in flying by opening my side window. After 
     about 25 tense minutes I flew out of the extremely turbulent 
     storm clouds and made a climbing circle to see if we could 
     pick up the other two B-26s. The skies were empty, and with 
     no radio response to our many calls, we headed for home.
       My co-pilot was Lt. I.B. (against my sense of justice I 
     withhold his full name). He hadn't been overjoyed with my 
     maneuvers in dodging the Japanese A/A flak back at Rabaul. He 
     was particularly unhappy when I had to whack him across the 
     mouth with the back of my hand to get him off the controls 
     during my in-and-out-of-the-volcano caper. He was sulking as 
     we gained altitude to clear the Owen-Stanley Mountains once 
     more. The weather was now clear with some broken clouds. I 
     told I.B. to ``take it'' and to make sure to clear the 
     mountains by at least 1000 feet, then within minutes I fell 
     dead asleep. I awoke a short time later. We had cleared the 
     mountains and were in a gradual descent but my co-pilot was 
     definitely not relaxed at the controls. Instead he was 
     staring straight ahead with a strange look on his face. The 
     cockpit was in shambles with scattered papers, maps, and 
     manuals strewn everywhere. I turned around to check the guys 
     in the navigator's compartment and they were ashen-faced. 
     ``What the hell happened?'', I asked, quickly figuring out 
     that he had skimmed the mountain too low and had gotten 
     into an awful thump of a turbulent downdraft. Suddenly the 
     right engine quit, starved for that 45 minutes of fuel 
     that had siphoned overboard on our climb-out. I quickly 
     lost the right prop. We were very light by now and had 
     good altitude so we easily made our 7-Mile Airfield home 
     base. While still on the landing roll our left engine 
     quit, also out of gas. I was able to coast off far enough 
     to one side to clear the runway and wait for a tow. George 
     Kersting's Marauder made it home shortly after us, but no 
     sign of our lead B-26.
       Within hours we learned that Chris Herron had lost an 
     engine because of the heavy downpour in that tropical storm. 
     Chris' co-pilot, an Aussie officer who was a former airline 
     pilot, advised that they fly due south. The Aussie co-pilot 
     knew of a small island with a landing strip. Herron opted to 
     land with their gear down. Tragically, the B-26's nose wheel 
     folded and the aircraft flipped over on them crushing the 
     cockpit. Chris and his co-pilot were killed. The bombardier 
     and navigator, Lt. Barnhill and Lt. Wright, survived the 
     crash, as did the two crewchief/gunners. Chris Herron was 
     truly one of the great ones, a natural leader who earned the 
     praise and affection of his crew and all of his colleagues in 
     the 22nd Group.
       A day or two later I flew my B-26 ``Kansas Komet'' back to 
     Australia. As I chopped our engines on the ramp at Townsville 
     Airfield, my co-pilot, I.B., was the first one out and on the 
     ground. When I hit the ground he snarled, ``I'll never fly 
     with you again, and I'll never fly in that airplane again!'' 
     I told him he was breaking my heart. And what did outstanding 
     Group leadership do with this disgruntled lieutenant? Why 
     they let him hang around group operations for several weeks 
     assisting in the combat briefings for the rest of us who were 
     flying missions, while the colonels found somewhere else to 
     transfer him. A General Jimmy Doolittle would have ripped off 
     his wings, stripped him down to his jockstrap and had him 
     tethered to a mule harness to start hauling supplies over the 
     Owen-Stanleys.
       Several weeks after that first incendiary mission, Capt. Al 
     Fletcher, our 22nd Group intelligence officer, told me that a 
     Japanese diary had been recovered from a crashed enemy 
     aircraft. In the diary the writer told of an incendiary raid 
     on Rabaul by three B-26 Marauders that had caused many fires, 
     all of which had been contained except for the fires caused 
     by incendiaries that had fallen into the open hatch of a 
     moored freighter. Those fires onboard the ship could not be 
     controlled. They reignited the dock and the warehouse area, 
     burned fiercely for hours and came within a fraction of 
     torching off a large ammo dump. I'm sorry I never saw that 
     captured diary that described the impact of Lt. Chris 
     Herron's final mission for his country. Yes sir, he was one 
     of the very best.

                          ____________________