“My closure was lost when he started pulling away,” Ferguson said, “so I pulled the flaps and this gave me a boost that settled us in behind at about 1,200 feet, where I was able to get a visual. I continued closing down to 300 feet, where I positively identified it as a Mitsubishi Betty bomber, which was very fast [280 mph] with a long range of over 2,500 miles. I moved in directly behind and level with him before firing a short burst into his port engine and the forward part of its fuselage. Seconds later, I observed a small explosion in the fuselage, which quickly turned into a red glow as the fire spread just behind the wing root and the Betty’s airspeed dropped abruptly, causing me to make a sharp turn to port while throttling back to avoid an overshoot. We eased up alongside the stricken bomber, gradually easing back to try and get behind him for another 20mm burst. I put a few rounds into it and the nose dropped and by now the entire aircraft was engulfed in flames. It went straight into the ocean and exploded on impact.”

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Lieutenant Ferguson was given another vector that proved to be a surface craft, so he returned to Saipan and landed at 0240. The crew chief confirmed that they had expended a total of 100 20mm rounds with all four guns firing. The Virgin Widow was a virgin no more, and the next day Sergeant Miozzi, Ferguson’s crew chief and the squadron artist, painted a wedding ring on the widow’s left hand.

The top scorer that Christmas night was Moon­happy. Lieutenant Haberman took off on his patrol at 2000. During the next two hours and 20 minutes, he and his crew would be credited with a double kill—two Betty bombers. On direction from their controller (Coral Base), they set up a figure-eight orbit north of Saipan at an altitude of 15,000 feet. The patrol started out uneventfully, with no bogeys showing up on control’s radar. Then Coral Base called to say they were getting a lot of snow on their screen and some blips that indicated several intruders headed toward the island. Haberman was vectored toward the one closest to him, and at five miles Lieutenant Mooney picked it up on his scope. This one proved to be a little different, as it appeared to be orbiting.

Finally, after a few minutes, the bogey straightened out and headed north. Moonhappy gave chase and quickly narrowed the gap. The intruder proved to be far below them, so Haberman cut back on power and dropped down to 9,000 feet, putting Moonhappy in position to close from the rear at the same altitude. The gunner, Private Patrick Farrelly, got a visual from about 2,000 feet, and after a few seconds the Americans were close enough to see they had intercepted a Betty that wasn’t aware of their presence. Beginning at 1,500 feet, the Black Widow fired short bursts as it closed to 700 feet. Some of the rounds hit the target, causing the enemy pilot to make some drastic maneuvers in an effort to shake the night fighter. Haberman stayed focused and hung onto the Betty’s tail, continuing to pump shorts bursts into its wing root and fuselage.

Haberman recalled what happened at this stage of the pursuit: “As the enemy bomber made violent turns to try and get away from my guns, I stayed in close and continued to pepper him all over. At that point, the Betty’s pilot put it into a slight dive and evidently had it at full throttle because we were hitting speeds of 320 mph or better. Then he rolled to port in an imbalance of split-S and nosed straight down with flames coming out of his right wing and right engine. For a few moments, we lost visual on the target at about 6,000 feet as it went through some thin clouds completely out of control. It was counted as a kill because there is no way that the aircraft could have pulled out and it probably fell into the water in scattered pieces. But we didn’t have much of a chance to catch our breath.”

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