20 June 2010
Men and the Weather
(The first runway completed at Isley Field, Saipan, September 1944)
Q: How are men and the weather alike?
A: Nothing can be done to change either of them.
It is Father's Day, and cause for me to think about what the men of his generation were expected to do without complaint. The weather is good.
I have a pal out west who is keeping his weather eye on the Pacific. He wrote me to say that he had been anticipating a warmer year ahead due to the beginning of the latest solar cycle (albeit a weak one) which is following the extended solar minimum.
He predicts a shift from El Nino (which brought monsoonal cloudiness to Colorado) to "neutral" Eastern Pacific Ocean surface temperatures in the coming months. He is not a professional meteorologist, but he does have some people who track that sort of thing for him.
Based on the warmth of the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, he is concerned about the coming hurricane season, which could be a very active one.
Alas, the "neutral" condition in the Pacific will be short-lived. By August, we will be in a La Nina condition. He says the shift is already in progress and means cold weather here in the US. La Nina plus an active hurricane season historically means lots of powerful storms hitting the US East Coast.
That could mean we will take another beating this winter. I will take the warmth while it is here.
It was not that way for Bill McCullough and the second wave of Americans to reach the Marianas.
The first wave had been the grunts who had mostly secured the island. There were still many Japanese soldiers out in the jungle, and more civilians, stunned by the brutal struggle.
Aslito Airfield became a raging battlefield and the bunkers and buildings along the flight line became small fortresses. The field was renamed Isley Field after Navy Commander Robert H. Isley, a carrier pilot who was killed while strafing the base in his Hellcat on June 13, 1944. He and his bullet-riddled plane plunged into the jungle.
Not to dwell on it, but it is important to recognize the particular savagery of the fighting. There was no quarter asked and none given. Everyone present knew what was at stake.
My pal the Admiral has made the acquaintance of noted aviation historian Baret Tillman. The Admiral is a unique original source for many of the truths that have become inconvenient to the conventional narratives of history, and Tillman has incorporated some of them in his new history of the strategic air campaign against Japan “Whirlwind.”
It is a great book, and points out some simple truths that Bill McCullough could tell you as well. First, the Marianas lie mostly within 15 degrees of the Equator, and the climate there in the late summer is more than uncomfortable. It is downright savage.
Rains as dense as the monsoon would come four times a day, interspersed with white-hot sun. The humidity was so high in the constant heat the everything, flesh and food alike were covered with fungus.
Dengue fever was endemic, and afflicted hundreds of the construction battalion personnel. Most structures on the island had been destroyed, and the mark of luxury on Saipan was having a wooden plank floor for your tent.
Nor was there danger only from the remaining Japanese in the jungle. The Empire still had a toehold in the island chain, and managed to launch air raids for months after Saipan was declared “secure.”
Aslito Field- or Isley now- was not adequate to handle the Super Forts that would soon arrive. And so the engineers arrived to lengthen the airstrip, slashing the jungle, crushing the coral and bulldozing the single runway to more than eight thousand feet in length.
The upgraded base commenced USAAF operations in September 1944, three months after the invasion.
Hardstands were required for the Super Forts, and a parallel runway, so the concrete began to flow, even as the Japanese arrived to strafe and harass the construction crews. Raids from Pagan and Iwo Jima against Saipan lasted from November to January 2, 1945. Altogether about eighty Japanese aircraft attacked, and nearly half were shot down.
Eleven B-29s were destroyed and 43 damaged on the ground. That included Hal McCullough’s original aircraft and Crew 17’s original flight engineer was badly wounded.
Iwo did not fall to the Marines until March 26, 1945, so the threat to Isley continued right through the beginning of the last year of the war. Not that anyone knew it would be that then.
The myopic experts on the Joint Target Board in Washington were applying the erroneous lessons-learned from the European campaign. The XXI Bomber Command was assigned the task of destroying the aircraft industry of Japan in a series of high-altitude, daylight precision attacks.
Those were the mission profiles that Hal McCullough’s Crew 17 were assigned. They did nearly their whole combat tour conducting months of disappointing high-level bombing attacks from Isley, Guam and Tinian.
XXth Air Force Commander General Curtis LeMay listened to the Navy and issued a new directive that the high-altitude, daylight attacks be phased out and replaced by low-altitude, high-intensity incendiary raids at nighttime, being followed up with high explosive bombs once the targets were set ablaze.
These nighttime attacks on Japan proved devastatingly effective, and the Super Fort missions from Isley Field led to massive destruction of industrial targets in Japan, with large industrial areas of Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka being laid to waste.
Lemay was a force of nature, and like the weather in the tropics, he could not be changed. He was going to do what he had to do.
Some of the bombers carried leaflets, written in Japanese:
(Front of leaflet)
Translation:
ATTENTION JAPANESE PEOPLE
In the next few days the military installations in some or all of the cities named on the photograph will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods. The American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives. America is not fighting the Japanese people, but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked, but some or all will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately.
Bill McCullough told me about what it was like to support those missions today. I will have to look at my notes and get back to you about that tomorrow.
Leaflet and rtanslation are from “Saipan. Then and Now,” by Glenn E. McClure. Published by the Confederate Air Force. 1990.
Photo of Isley Field is from Walter H. Lobinske Sr., who was stationed at Isley Field, Saipan from September 1944 to October 1945. Photo is courtesy of his son, Walter, Jr.
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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