Dividends

A storm was rising over New Guinea. One day last week, through a cloud slit in the turbulent sky, a heavy-bellied Liberator (6-24) spied something to break the monotony of its patrol: 14 leaden ships upon a leaden ocean.

They were Japanese ships, headed toward New Guinea. The news was an answer to Lieut. General George C. Kenney's prayers. Taking cover under the gathering storm, a Japanese convoy had slipped out of Rabaul and was edging down the dark New Britain coast with reinforcements for Lae, main Jap base in New Guinea. The Japs, driven out of Guadalcanal and Papua, were obviously pouring men and supplies into the chinks of their outposts north of Australia.

The convoy plowed westward deep into the Bismarck Sea before Kenney struck. High above the convoy, Fortresses first laid a closely woven pattern of bombs. A 6,000-ton Jap cargo ship broke in half. A 10,000-tonner, hit five times, went up in flames. Another cargo ship caught fire. Twice again that day, Fortresses and Liberators returned to the attack, shot down five defending Zeros.

High & Low. Some time that night eight more ships joined the convoy.

On the second morning, Mitchell B258 dumped 500-lb. bombs on the enlarged target. Ten minutes later came Australian Beaufighters. Next another wave of Mitchells dropped explosives on dodging cargo ships and destroyers. This fight was for the kill. The Mitchells swooped low to strafe lifeboats and rafts. A destroyer, three merchantmen and a transport were sunk. Eight others were hit. One squadron of Mitchells, skip-bombing at mast level, got twelve hits, despite the nail of frantic Jap ack-ack. More Zeros appeared, but they too were shot down. Kenney's bombers were blasting at Lae, nearest Jap airdrome, with such ferocity that effective aid for the convoy could not get into the air.

At 3 p.m., Kenney sent in his flyers for the final blow. Low-flying Havocs (A-20s) struck first. Fortresses returned with more 1,000-lb. bombs. Three] minutes later Mitchells roared down to machine-gun the battered, burning ships. Lightning fighters darted at a cloud of Zeros. A new wave of Fortresses came over, low. Flame cloaked a destroyer. A 5,000-ton merchantman burst open. Four others were hit. Low-flying fighters turned lifeboats towed by motor barges, and packed with Jap survivors, into bloody sieves. Loosed on the Japs was the same ferocity which they had often displayed. This time few, if any, Japs in battle green reached shore.

Next morning little remained afloat except flotsam, human wreckage and oil splattering 20 square miles of Huon Gulf. On that day, two crippled destroyers were blasted to the bottom. They were the last of the convoy.

Battle Scores. According to U.S. figures, the Japs lost three light cruisers, seven destroyers and twelve merchant ships, and 15,000 troops. Of the 150 planes which tried to save the convoy, 102 were put out of action. For this clean victory, the U.S. paid: One heavy bomber, three fighters. Of the 136 U.S. planes in battle, 132 returned.

More than a clean sweep for the United Nations, the Bismarck Battle was a clear-cut victory of land-based planes, carefully coordinated, over a concentration of ships and their escorting aircraft. Bombers operating at all angles and altitudes had shown new accuracy. But heavy and medium bombers, coming in low, had dealt the deathblows. U.S. airmen's bumbling failure to halt or even hit a similar Jap convoy bound for New Guinea last July had been retrieved.

Said General Douglas MacArthur, who earlier had warned that Japs were massing north of Australia: "Our decisive success cannot fail to have a most important effect on the enemy's tactical plans. His campaign, at least for the time being, is completely dislocated. . . . Merciful Providence has guarded us in this great victory." General MacArthur's communiques neglected to mention General Kenney.

Comparisons, with the Battles of Britain and Midway were overblown. Said Robert Lovett, Assistant Secretary of War for Air: "No one ought to get too excited--it's only one round of a continuing battle. lt was like a football coach's dream, in which every blocker takes out his man and the ball carrier crosses the line standing up. . . . Mass air attack by a team, that's what did the trick. The lesson is that if you use air power properly you get dividends."

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