Less than two hours later, twenty-nine heavy bombers hit the convoy. It was still too distant for coordinated attacks by all types of aircraft, so the burden of the initial attack rested on the B-17s. The plan called for long-range P-38 fighters from the 9th Fighter Squadron to provide an escort, but the fighters failed to reach the rendezvous point on time, and the first wave of bombers faced fierce enemy fighter attacks without protection. The low cloud deck and intermittent heavy thunderstorms contributed to the confusion. Eventually, the fighters would make it to the fight and repulse the Japanese Oscars, but not before nine of the B-17s were damaged.

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Nonetheless, the initial attack achieved some success. B-17 pilots reported seeing the transport Kyokusei Maru breaking in half and sinking. The ship’s cargo hold contained a combustible mix of ammunition and gasoline. Teiyo Maru, the merchant ship that carried the diarist, also suffered damage in the attack. In the afternoon, nine B-17s returned and dropped thirty-one 1,000-pound bombs on the convoy, but weather hampered the observation of the results. Two destroyers, Asagumo and Yukikaze, picked up 820 survivors from Kyokusei Maru, left the convoy in the afternoon, and proceeded to Lae, where they arrived around midnight and unloaded cargo and personnel. The two ships rejoined the convoy the next morning.

In the morning of March 3, the convoy finally arrived within striking distance of the B-25C-1s. The storm had moved east, leaving the convoy in the clear as it traversed the Vitiaz Strait. Kenney ordered the “big brawl” to begin. By 9:30 a.m., all the planes in the strike package reached the assembly area, Cape Ward Hunt southeast of Lae, and were ready for action.

The first Allied planes roared overhead just as the commanding officer aboard Oigawa Maru, Captain Ino, was telling the troops assembled in formation on deck that they should not expect any air raids. Ino knew the Japanese had imminent plans to bomb the airfield at Port Moresby and surmised that all Allied planes would be too busy to muster an attack against the convoy. When Allied planes suddenly appeared from two different directions, “his men wished the CO would cut short his remarks and instructions so they could go below and prepare to leave the ship when it was bombed,” an Allied battle evaluation report later recounted.

Allied air attacks were so closely timed and heavily concentrated that postmission intelligence reports judged it was impossible to ascertain which airplane or squadron actually sank each ship. B-17s flying at 7,000 feet dropped their bombs first, causing the Japanese vessels to maneuver violently and break up their formation, thereby reducing their concentrated antiaircraft firepower. That left individual ships vulnerable to strafers and masthead bombers. B-25s bombing from 3,000 to 6,000 feet also arrived overhead to drop their load of 500-pound bombs. Crew members reported seeing two burning Japanese ships ram each other while attempting to avoid the bombs. Much of the Japanese antiaircraft fire was focused on the medium-altitude bombers, which left an opening for bombers flying at minimum altitude.

Then thirteen Beaufighters swept in low on the water, strafing the whole length of the convoy. The Japanese destroyers, mistakenly thinking they were torpedo bombers, turned toward the attacking planes to present a smaller target. This left the merchant ships with even less protection. Next Major Larner’s B-25C-1s joined the fray, flying at twenty-five to one hundred feet off the water. They literally blazed a path for their masthead bomb attacks with their forward-firing .50-caliber guns.

“We were indicating about 260 mph when we passed over the target,” Maj. John Henebry described in a postmission report of a broadside attack against one ship. “I fired in as close as I could as the decks were covered with troops and supplies. Just before I pulled up to clear the mast, my co-pilot released two of our three five-hundred pound bombs, one fell short and the other scored a direct hit into the side of the ship, at water line.”

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