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"See?" he crowed. The drab sedan lurched on toward Moresby.
Next morning, before the sun began to smother Moresby in equatorial heat, three Fortresses droned north. Reconnaissance photographs had revealed a larger concentration of Jap ships in Rabaul Harbor than usual, and some 40 planes on adjacent airdromes. The vanguard of Fortresses ignored the ships, dropped their 500-lb. bombs on the planes. How many they smashed the darkness concealed, but fewer than 20 rose to meet the 30-odd U.S. bombers which struck the harbor's clustered ships at noon. Five of these went down before the squadrons' .50-caliber guns. Nine, possibly ten, warships were left afire or sinking. The price: one heavy bomber.*
What a Week! That was only the beginning of a week when George Kenney's dice tumbled out sevens like a slot machine gone haywire, and U.S. airpower in the Southwest Pacific came of age.
Despite the U.S. heavy bombers' heavy toll, the Jap dipped next day into his deep reservoir of shipping and brought out four transports, determinedly convoyed by two cruisers and four destroyers. The destination: Lae (rhymes with gay) 150 miles up the New Guinea coast from Buna, where the Jap has his nearest foothold.
The convoy was only 30 miles off New Britain, near Gasmata, when a B-24 Liberator on reconnaissance picked it up. A Flying Fortress escorted by eight long-range P-38 (Lightning) fighters flew in to intercept. They found that the convoy carried an umbrella of 14 Zeros. They shot down nine, probably got three more and damaged the other two.
Fortresses haunted the convoy until after dark, when an Australian-manned Navy Catalina picked up the convoy's phosphorescent wake. Three bombs from the Catalina blew up a big (14,000-ton) transport which probably carried 4,000 men.
Next morning the convoy reached the vicinity of Lae, where more Zeros undertook to protect it. Then George Kenney's airmen really started to work. Besides Fortresses, Liberators and Lightnings, George Kenney has samples of almost every type of combat plane the U.S. can produce: twin-engined Boston (A-20), Marauder (B26) and Mitchell (B25) bombers, Kittyhawk (P-40) fighters, plus some Australian Beaufighters and Beaufort bombers. The turbo-supercharged Lightnings can hit the Zeros high, and the heavily-armed Kittyhawks catch them when they come down low.†
The Lightnings opened the fighting against 20 Zeros by knocking down four. A flight of Marauders dumped its bombs, fought off twelve fresh Zeros, probably got two. Three Flying Fortresses poured .50-caliber bullets at the Zeros for nearly an hour, destroyed four. The bombers sank a second large transport and hit a third with a 500-lb. bomb.