Finish forty and home : the untold World War II story of B-24s in the Pacific

307 Pages·2011·2.97 MB·English

by  Scearce

FINISH FORTY
AND HOME
The Untold World War II Story
of B-24s in the Pacific
Phil Scearce
Number 5 in the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS PRESS
FRANK W. MAYBORN GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF JOURNALISM
DENTON, TEXAS
© 2011 Phil Scearce
Foreword ©2011 University of North Texas Press All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Permissions:
University of North Texas Press
1155 Union Circle #311336
Denton, TX 76203-5017
The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, z39.48.1984. Binding materials have been chosen for
durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scearce, Phil, 1962-
Finish forty and home : the untold World War II story of B-24s in the Pacific / Phil Scearce. -- 1st ed.
p. cm. -- (Number 5 in the Mayborn literary nonfiction series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-57441-316-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Scearce, Herman, 1925-2. United States. Army--Biography. 3. Soldiers--United States--Biography. 4.
Radio operators--United States--Biography. 5. Radar operators--United States--Biography. 6. B-24 bomber-
-History. 7. World War, 1939-1945--Pacific Area--Aerial operations, American. 8. World War, 1939-1945-
-Campaigns--Pacific Area. 9. Pacific Area--History, Military--20th century. I. Title. II. Series: Mayborn
literary nonfiction series ; no. 5.
D767.9.S39 2011
940.54’4973092--dc22
[B]
2011016700
Finish Forty and Home: The Untold World War II Story of B-24s in the Pacific is Number 5 in the Mayborn
Literary Nonfiction Series
to Diane
Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Sergeant at Seventeen
2 Hawaii
3 First Mission
4 Nauru
5 Air Raid
6 Chance
7 May 1943
8 The Squadron’s Objectives
9 The Pacific Preferred
10 Softening Tarawa
11 Forever Consequences
12 Losing Altitude Fast
13 Back to Hawaii
14 Last Flights
15 Ask the Man Who Owns One
16 The Meaning of Boxes
17 Guam
18 Back in Business
19 Halfway to Forty
20 January 1945
21 Endings for Some
Epilogue
Endnotes
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Map of Pacific Theatre
Al Marston, Herman Scearce, and Jack Yankus, Oahu, 1943
Original crew of Dogpatch Express
Dogpatch Express in flight
S.Sgt. Bob Lipe
Lt. William “Gailor” Roy
Jack Yankus and Herman Scearce
Close-up of B-24 cockpit
Deasy’s crew around Jeep
Captain Joe Deasy
Texan with rear-facing gun position
Naughty Nanette
963 unloading supplies on Funafuti
Charlie Pratte’s Belle of Texas
Virginia Belle
Bombing-up for a mission, Funafuti
B-24 destroyed by bomb in raid on Funafuti
B-24 propeller following Japanese raid
Crew quarters, Funafuti
Airmen with native girl, Funafuti
Funafuti
Lt. George Smith’s crash on take-off, overloaded for a photo-reconnaissance
mission
Daisy Mae on the beach at Midway after Wake Island raid
Dogpatch Express going down
Pratte’s brakes-out landing using parachutes
Corpsmen removing dead from truck hit by bomb
Mess hall fire, Funafuti
Engine maintenance, Funafuti
Intelligence debrief, Deasy’s crew after mission
Chow time, Funafuti
Bomb plot chart
Mission briefing, Guam
Christmas mail call on Guam
42nd Squadron B-24 takes off
Crew quarters, Guam
Mine released from B-24
Strong’s B-24 after mine struck fuselage
Over Iwo Jima, phosphorous bomb bursts nearby
Bomb train explodes across runway, Iwo Jima
42nd Squadron B-24 over Iwo Jima
FOREWORD
WE FOUGHT A SMALL WAR in the Central Pacific. Our numbers were not large but
the percentage of men and planes lost was great. When I arrived in Hawaii in
October of 1942, I was billeted in a barracks with the officers of four combat
crews, sixteen of us in all. When I left the Pacific for home in March of 1945,
there were four of us still alive and two of the four, Russell Phillips and Louis
Zamperini, had spent two years in a Japanese prison camp. In a five-week period
flying bombing missions over the Marshall and Gilbert Islands, we lost four
crews and five airplanes out of eleven in the 42nd Squadron.
I finished my forty missions in January 1945. I was released as Squadron
Commander and returned home on March 10, 1945, twenty-nine months after
leaving.
This history brings back memories of the dear friends who gave their lives in
this war and is a tribute to them and to all those, like Sergeant Herman Scearce,
who laid their lives on the line and were blessed to survive. It is a comfort to
know that this record has been written in remembrance of these patriots and of
this part of our war in the Pacific.
Colonel Jesse E. Stay
United States Air Force, Retired
Preface
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT MY FATHER, Herman Scearce, and the men he served with
during World War II, young airmen of the 11th Bombardment Group’s 42nd
Bomb Squadron. They fought almost anonymously in the early years of the war
in the Pacific. By the time America turned its full attention to the Pacific war and
11th Group B-24 Liberator bombers reached striking distance of Japan, the
glamorous new B-29 Superfortress arrived and took center stage.
My dad flew strike missions as a radio operator and gunner on a Liberator,
staging from Hawaii to strike tiny Japanese-held island targets from island bases
too small and poorly equipped to serve as permanent bases. These bombing
missions were filled with the perils of enemy fighter interception, concentrated
antiaircraft fire, and unforgiving distance. The 11th Group B-24s flew the
longest missions of the war, over great expanses of featureless ocean where there
was no room for the slightest navigational mistake and no alternative landing
field for struggling aircraft.
My father’s squadron and the rest of the 11th Group worked their way up the
Central Pacific. As American forces invaded and took Japanese islands, the 11th
advanced and began flying missions against the next enemy target in the chain,
battling closer with each step to the Japanese home islands. The goal for
American bomber crewmen was to get credit for forty strike missions, a goal that
seemed impossibly out of reach in the beginning. Some, like my dad, finished
forty and got home, but many men weren’t so lucky.
This book was constructed from interviews and correspondence with long-lost
squadron mates and other B-24 veterans, along with personal visits with my
father’s former pilot and Squadron Commander Joe Deasy in Boston, crewmate
Ed Hess in Chicago, crewmate and best buddy Jack Yankus in Tempe, and the
surviving family of crewmate Bob Lipe in Columbiana, Ohio. Interviews and
correspondence were supplemented by many hours of research at the Air Force
Historical Research Agency in Montgomery, Alabama, and the National