‘We came in at 12,000 feet with the dive bombers,’ recounted pilot Jim Shearer of VT-9, ‘and then pushed over into the sea, so our division pulled up over a ridge where there was a hell of a lot of anti-aircraft, and then down to 300 feet to pick up those jokers as they cleared the harbor. Thank God for the weather! We broke out of a rain squall, dropped our fish on a Mogami-class cruiser and then went back into a rain squall again. Then we really tooled it down the channel and out of there.’

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The target Shearer described was probably the light cruiser Agano, which suffered a damaging torpedo hit, as did the destroyer Naganami. Least fortunate of the Japanese ships was the destroyer Suzunami, which was loading torpedoes when VB-9’s SBDs roared down on her. Her hull was split, and she sank near the harbor entrance. The light cruiser Yubari and destroyers Urakaze and Umikaze suffered slight damage from strafing.

Striving to protect the bombers, 12 Hellcats of VF-9 got into a wild free-for-all with 35 Zeros over the harbor mouth at 9:15 a.m. Lieutenant Junior Grade Hamilton McWhorter III, who had already earned the nickname of ‘One Slug’ after downing a Zero over Wake, added two more Zeros to his score and probably downed a third, but came back with 11 bullet holes in his fuselage and wing. Lieutenant Keenen ‘Casey’ Childers and his flight of F6Fs were jumped. ‘I never did see who was shooting at us,’ he reported, ‘but one of them got behind my wingman and myself and my wingman pulled up ahead of me with his belly on fire. He waved that he was O.K., went on and landed in the water, and got out all right in his raft.’ Behind him, Japanese fighters were trying unsuccessfully to drop small wing bombs on the SBDs. VF-9 claimed 14 victories that morning, including two by Lieutenant Armistead B. Smith, Jr., and one by Lt. j.g. Eugene A. Valencia–the first of 23 that would make him the third-ranking U.S. Navy ace.

Commander Michael P. Bagdanovich, leading Bunker Hill’s Air Group 17, directed VB-17’s new SB2Cs to attack the Japanese cruisers, to be followed by VT-17’s Avengers. The Helldiver crews reported seeing bombs with time fuses bursting in midair, along with numerous Zeros. Four Zeros of the 253rd Kokutai attacked Lieutenant Robert B. Wood’s SB2C-1C, which raced out of Simpson Harbor at maximum speed while his gunner, chief radioman W.O. Haynes, downed two of their attackers before being seriously wounded. At that point, F6F-3s of VF-18 came to the rescue, and Lieutenant James D. Billo and Ensign John J. Sargent, Jr., claimed the remaining two Zeros. Wood made it back to Bunker Hill, where 130 bullet holes were counted in his plane. The day’s activities cost VB-17 one Helldiver to the Zeros, one to the flak and two operational losses.

Lieutenant William F. Krantz of VT-17 launched a torpedo at a heavy cruiser, but as he turned left he was bracketed by AA fire from the cruiser and a destroyer. ‘One burst almost blew me upside down; as I passed near the destroyer, a heavy plume of smoke poured out of the right side of my engine,’ he later recalled. ‘I next fired my machine guns at the small enemy ship and headed for St. George Channel.’

At that point, Krantz came under attack by enemy fighters. ‘I dropped to the top of the waves to prevent them from flying underneath me,’ he said. ‘My gunner, V.S. Case, accounted for two, and an F6F picked off one as he pulled away from my aircraft.’

Krantz’s attackers may have included Seaman 1st Class Masajiro Kawato, an 18-year-old Zero pilot who had joined the 253rd Kokutai just a month earlier. Kawato claimed to have set a TBF on fire before being shot down and wounded in the leg by two Corsairs. He bailed out over Simpson Harbor and swam ashore. Actually, VF-17’s F4Us did not take part in the raid, but Kawato may have been downed by one of VF-9’s Hellcats. Meanwhile, Krantz tried to reach Empress Augusta Bay but was forced to ditch his Avenger near Buka Island. He, Case and O.L. Miller drifted on a life raft for 12 days before landing at Cape Orford on New Britain Island, from which they were finally rescued on March 26, 1944.

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