O S P R EY C O M B AT A I R C R A FT • 87 E d w a rd M Young ^ EDWARD M YOUNG received his BA in Political Science from Harvard University and his MA from the University of Washington. Prior to his retirement he was a banker and financial analyst, with assignments in New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. He is the author of several books on aviation history. For Osprey he has written Campaign 136: Meiktila 1945 and Warrior 141: Merrill's Marauders. MARK STYLING has illustrated many titles for Osprey including Aircraft of the Aces, Combat Aircraft and Aviation Elite Units series volumes since 1994. Based in Bridport, Dorset, he produces accurate illustrations of any chosen aircraft type. He has created some of the best artwork available to Osprey, and his nose art panels are legendary. | OSPREY COMBAT AIRCRAFT • 87 [ B-24 LIBERATOR UNITS OF THE CBI SERIES EDITOR: TONY HOLMES O S P R EY C O M B AT A I R C R A FT * 87 B-24 LIBERATOR UNITS OF THE CBI EDWARD M YOUNG Jl Front Cover First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Osprey Publishing The character of the air war in the Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford, OX2 0PH China-Burma-India Theatre differed 44-02 23rd St, Suite 219, Long Island City ,New York, 11101 from the European and Mediterranean theatres. The B-24 Liberator bombers of the 7th BG E-mail: [email protected] with the Tenth Air Force in India and the 308th BG with the © 2011 Osprey Publishing Limited Fourteenth Air Force in China waged a relentless campaign against the Japanese lines of communication. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, From India, the 7th BG flew many research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Design and missions targeting the railway Patents Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a system in Burma, while from China the 308th BG concentrated retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means ,electronic, on Japanese shipping, combining electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise low-level attacks on merchant without prior written permission. All enquiries should be addressed to the vessels in the China Sea with publisher. missions against port facilities along the China coast. On the morning of 16 October ISBN: 978 1 84908 341 6 1944, as part of Mission 278, the E-book ISBN: 978 1 84908 342 3 308th BG sent out 28 B-24s to bomb the Kowloon docks in Hong Kong in a combined operation with B-25s Edited by Tony Holmes from the 341st BG. The B-24s were Page design by Tony Truscott to bomb the docks from high Cover Artwork by Mark Postlethwaite altitude to draw off the Japanese fighters and flak while the B-25s Aircraft Profiles by Mark Styling went in at low level to attack Index by Alan Thatcher shipping in nearby Victoria harbour. Originated by PDQ Digital Media Solutions, Suffolk, UK The 308th dropped its bombs at Printed in China through Bookbuilders 1340 hrs from an altitude of 17,000 ft, placing 85 per cent of them in the target area as it 11 12 13 14 15 1098765432 1 scored direct hits on the docks and adjacent buildings. The escort of Osprey Publishing is supporting the Woodland Trust, the UK's leading P-51 Mustangs kept the intercepting Japanese fighters at bay. The woodland conservation charity by funding the dedication o ftrees. formation encountered heavy calibre anti-aircraft fire, which the www.ospreypublishing.com crews described as 'medium intensity, and of fair accuracy'. Most of the flak came after the formation ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS had completed its bomb run. Three I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Archie DiFante at the Air Force aeroplanes received minor damage. Historical Research Agency who tracked down the aircraft record cards for the Flying to Hong Kong that day B-24s featured in the colour section of this book. Thank you also to Anthony were B-24J-155-CO 44-40316 Ding How Dottie, a long-serving veteran Strotman for permission to use photographs from the 308th BG and Jim of the 373rd BS, and the newly Augustus for permission to use photographs o fthe 7th BG from his collection. arrived B-24L-1-CO 44-41427 COCKY The wonderful staff at the Still Pictures Branch, Archives II, National Archives BOBBY, which flew several missions and Records Service also rendered assistance. Thank you to Dr Mary Ruwell with the 373rd before transferring to the 425th BS (Cover artwork by and her staff at the US Air Force Academy Library for permitting me to use Mark Postlethwaite) photographs from the 7th BG(H) Historical Foundation. Assistance was also given by Dean Stockton and his colleagues who created and maintain the website www.B24BestWeb.com. Thanks also to Brett Stolle at the National Museum of the US Air Force for the use of photographs from the John Osborne collection, the Museum of Flight and my good friend Osamu Tagaya. CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE CHINA-BURMA-INDIA 6 CHAPTER TWO OPERATIONS DURING 1943 13 CHAPTER THREE STRATEGIC AIR FORCE 28 CHAPTER FOUR FOURTEENTH AIR FORCE 44 CHAPTER FIVE SEA SEARCHES AND ICHI-GO 69 CHAPTER SIX ENDGAME IN CHINA 85 APPENDICES 90 COLOUR PLATES COMMENTARY 91 INDEX 95 CHINA-BURMA INDIA (T T Planes Set Fires in Rangoon' ran the headline in ^S The New York Times. The April 1942 article I i reported how American aeroplanes had 'made a smashing night attack on Rangoon', laying down a heavy bombardment on Rangoon's docks, perhaps conjuring in the minds of some readers an image of fleets of mighty four-engined bombers raining bombs down on the Japanese. The reality could not have been more different. On the night of 3 April 1942, five B-17Es and a single LB-30 (AL608) from the 7th BG took off from Asansol, in India, and flew to Rangoon, where they started three large fires in the dock area with bombs and incendiaries. This was the second combat mission of the newly-formed Tenth Air Force, assigned to the equally new China-Burma-India Theatre, and the first mission over the Asian mainland for the Liberator. Over the next three-and-a-half years the B-24 Liberator would form the backbone of the two heavy bomber units assigned to the CBI Theatre, the 7th BG of the Tenth Air Force and the 308th BG of the Fourteenth Air Force. Liberators would range over most of China and much of Southeast Asia, bombing from high, medium and low altitudes by day and by night, sweeping the China seas for Japanese shipping, laying mines in the rivers and ports, dive-bombing bridges, strafing locomotives and rolling stock and hauling gasoline and supplies over the dangerous Hump route. Twelve- to fifteen-hour missions would become routine. The B-24's great range, bomb load and versatility made it ideally suited to a theatre of war where terrain, appalling weather, vast distances and inadequate facilities put enormous strains on men and aircraft. In the early months of 1942, reeling under the successive blows of the Japanese offensive in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, the combined political and military leadership of Britain and the United States, now allies in a global conflict, struggled to adopt a strategy for pursuing the war in the face of rapidly changing circumstances. At the Arcadia Conference at the end of 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt, with the combined chiefs of staff, had agreed on the basic outline for Anglo-American strategy. Germany would be the primary enemy and would need to be defeated first. Under the 'Germany First' strategy Europe would be the principal Allied battleground, and would receive priority for supplies and manpower. Against Japan the Allies agreed to adopt a policy of strategic defence, maintaining the security of the base areas on the flanks of the rapidly expanding Japanese-won territory in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific and protecting the lines of communication to these base areas. Only the minimum forces necessary to safeguard these base areas would be diverted from the attack on Germany. Straightforward in principle, the strategic defence against Japan generated immediate questions as to the exact nature of this defence, how the meagre forces available should be allocated and how to exercise effective control over the units of the several countries involved across a vast geographic area. It soon became apparent that in developing a strategy for the defence of Asia, British and American national interests and strategic objectives were in conflict. By early February 1942, Allied hopes of slowing the Japanese advance into Southeast Asia were crumbling. The Japanese Army had captured Malaya and was on the verge of capturing Singapore, had pushed deeply into the Dutch East Indies and was on the way to Rangoon, in Burma. The probable loss of Burma posed an immediate threat to India. Not surprisingly, the main interest of the British government was the defence of India and the ultimate re-conquest of its colonies in Southeast Asia. For the United States, the primary objective was to support China. Since the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in August 1937 American sympathies had been with the Chinese people and their desperate struggle against the Japanese. After four years of war, during which time the Chinese armies had suffered more than 1.7 million casualties, China was on the verge of exhaustion, its resources severely depleted and its armed forces poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly led. The Japanese controlled the coastal areas of China and all the industrial centres, reducing China's ability to receive aid and produce its own war materials. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor China's only lifeline was the Burma Road, an inadequate route from the port of Rangoon up to the Chinese border at Lashio. China-bound supplies travelled over this one road, including American war materials under Lend-Lease, which had begun in May 1941. With the Japanese conquest of Burma and the loss of the Burma Road, China would be completely cut off from her allies. For reasons of sentiment and military necessity the United States wanted to ensure that China remained in the war against Japan. There were over a million Japanese troops tied down in China — representing two-fifths of the Japanese Army's divisions - and it was imperative to the defence of the Pacific and India that they remain there. Many in the US military realised that the defeat of Japan would ultimately require attacks on the Japanese homeland, and many, including air power advocates in the USAAC, saw China as the most logical base for such operations. With the outbreak of war with Japan, sustaining the Chinese war effort by providing immediate and increasing assistance to China became a priority for the United States. By necessity, the base for this effort would have to be India. With the loss of the Burma Road the only supply route to China was the air route from Assam in Northeast India to Kunming in Southwest China, across the Himalaya Mountains, which would become famous as the Hump route. This air route would have to be built up and would need to be defended at both ends against Japanese attack. To oversee the American effort to support China the War Department created the China-Burma-India Theatre (CBI) and appointed Lt Gen Joseph Stilwell as Theatre Commander. The tasks assigned to Stilwell were onerous. His charge was 'support China', which meant increasing the effectiveness of American assistance to China, building the flow of Lend-Lease supplies and other aid, and improving the efficiency of the Chinese armed forces in order to prosecute the war against Japan. With the loss of Burma, Stilwell concluded that the best way to aid China was to retake Burma and re-open the Burma Road. This objective became the basis for American strategy in the CBI. As long as the Japanese remained in Burma they could threaten the flow of supplies to China. Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff thought differently, believing that fighting in the jungles of Burma would negate the Allies' superiority in materiel. They also had a less sanguine view of China's importance to the war against Japan. Far better, they thought, to expand the air route to China and bypass Burma altogether in favour of a seaborne assault on Malaya or Singapore. It would take 18 months for the Allies to agree on a strategy for the war in Burma and to set up a combined command. 7th BG To assist Stilwell in achieving his objectives the newly activated Tenth Air Force was assigned to the CBI Theatre in February 1942. The Tenth would face challenges unknown to other Army Air Forces. The South Asian Monsoon with strong, often violent winds drenched India and much of Burma with torrential rains from May to September, while the East Asian Monsoon brought similar conditions to Southeast Asia and southern China during the same period of the year. The monsoon season not only obscured targets but made flying through such weather difficult and often dangerous, particularly over the mountain ranges along the border of India and Burma and through the Himalayas. While crews in China had some chance of returning to Allied territory with the help of the Chinese guerrillas, bailing out over Burma meant certain capture. An inhospitable climate, difficult terrain and a determined foe were bad enough, but the Tenth Air Force and its combat units faced the added difficulties of being at the end of the longest supply line of any American air force and, because of the Germany first strategy, having the lowest priority for aircraft, men and equipment. Compounding the supply problem was the limited industrial base in either India or China necessary to sustain a modern air force and an inadequate transportation system within the theatre. Despite remarkable achievements as the war progressed, logistics would remain an overriding constraint on air operations, especially in China, until the end of the war. At the end of February Maj Gen Lewis Brereton, who was then serving as the Deputy Commander, Air Forces, ABDACOM (American-British- Dutch-Australian Command) and fighting a desperate battle against the Japanese in Java, was appointed commander of the Tenth Air Force. When Brereton took control on 5 March 1942, the heavy bomber component of his new air force consisted of less than a dozen aircraft — nine B-17Es that had been stopped in India on their way to Java and a single LB-30 that had flown Gen Brereton from Java to India! These aircraft belonged to the 7th BG, whose units were present at the attack on Pearl Harbor and would fly missions up to war's end. In the autumn of 1941, the 7th BG had three squadrons, the 9th, 11th, and 22nd BSs, and the attached 88th Reconnaissance Squadron (RS), equipped with B-17Es. That November the 7th BG was ordered to the Philippines to reinforce America's air forces. The 88th RS was on its way when it was caught in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.