Mrs Moggy picked up a P51 book in a junk shop a few weeks back. A little A5 softback called P-51 Bomber Escort. It is part of a Pan / Ballantine illustrated history of WW II. Written by William Hess.
It has resided in the smallest room in the house for light reading. Not much in it seems to add much to the sum of human knowledge, but not knowing a great deal about the Pacific operations of the fighter I was interested to read about an epic combat.
Just SW of Baguio they spotted a twin-engined Japanese bomber escorted by twelve Tony type fighters. The formation was some 2,000 feet above them and had apparently failed to notice them. The Americans realised that for a lone bomber to have such protection it must be occuppied by some very important people.
Shomo and Lipscomb climbed steeply to make the interception. As the two Mustang pilots opened fire the Japanese continued to hold formation and pay no attention to the P-51s. Either the Americans were not spotted until it was too late or the enemy pilots mistook the Mustangs which were new to theater (sic) to be two more Tonys coming up to join the formation.
Shomo promptly shot down the bomber while Lipscomb destroyed one of the fighters. This broke up the enemy formation and the Tonys appeared to mill around in confusion. The Mustangs continued to tear into the formation and nothing the Tony pilots did seemed right. When the combat was broken, Shomo had downed six of the enemy fighters in addition to the bomber and Lipscomb had downed four fighters. The two surviving Tonys left at high speed for Formosa
Shomo won the Congressional Medal of Honour for this action.
Now I naturally wanted to know who was in that bomber. After all we know all about the similar downing of Yamamoto, it is widely publicised. But I had never heard of this action.
Of course a little research shows the disservice that the author had done to these brave men in skewing the account to try and make them out to be more heroic that they actually were (Anybody who willingly takes on odds of 6:1 is a hero in my book)
In all probability this was actually a flight of twelve kamikaze aircraft flown by rookie suicide pilots with a couple of hours instruction and no ammunition, or probably even guns.
Such would have been their standard of aviation expertise that they needed a navigator, flying in the accompanying bomber to get them to wherever they were required.
Different story isn’t it?
Shomo & Lipscomb did well. Any one of those Tonys could have sunk a carrier or cruiser with horrendous loss of life. Surely that was enough glory for any author.
Why did he have to try and gild the lily?
Moggy
By: super sioux - 8th December 2009 at 21:22
Same action, different story!
Quoting from Steve Birdsalls ‘Flying Buccaneers’ the illustrated story of Kenney’s Fifth Air Force. Sub heading – ‘The Flying Undertaker’ On January 11 1945 two Mustangs from the 82nd Tactical Recon Squadron left Mindoro to check over the Japanese airdromes on northern Luzon. They never got as far as their primary target, because Captain William Shomo and his wingman, Lieutenant Paul Lipscomb, spotted a Betty bomber with an escort of eleven Tonys and a Tojo about two thousand feet above them. Shomo climbed from five hundred feet, with Lipscomb on his wing.
In his first attack Shomo hit the leader and the wingman of the trailing element of fighters and both Tonys exploded. The Japanese fighters did not break up or try to fight during the first pass, evidently mistaking the F-6s for friendly fighters- the pilot of the second Tony opened his canopy and stood up, waving his arm, and other aircrafthad waggled their wings.
Cutting back in, Shomo blasted another fighter and it went down in flames. Then the Japanese broke up into pairs,but seemed confused about what to do. Shomo blew up a fourth Tony and saw that the Betty was trying to dive away and escape. Shomo flew his Mustang down below it and fired up into the belly of the bomber. It began to burn and glided down towards a field, the Japanese pilot trying to line up for a belly landing. Just above the field the bomber erupted. Shomo was so close that his Mustang lurched, and bits and piecesof the Betty pelted his plane.
Shomo climbed sharply again, and the Tojo fired a deflection shot at him on the way up. Pulling the F-6 into a tight turn Shomo watched the Tojo skid under his Mustang and disappear into a cloud layer. Heading for two of the remaining fighters, Shomo shot down one from behind and the other tried to get away. Shomo dived a hundred feet and caught the last of his seven victims.
The sky was clear. There was only Lipscomb’s Mustang up higher, and he had disposed of three of the Tonys in his first combat.
William Shomo was awarded the Medal of Honor. Before the war Shomo was a licensed embalmer!
By: J Boyle - 8th December 2009 at 17:35
Your theory about the bomber being a nav escort for Kamikazes is plausable, but did they use Tonys for those missions?
I guess it would depend on the date of the action.
As the end of the war neared, any plane was considered for those attacks.
What was your research on the attack?
If Shomo won Medal of Honor (Congressional is not part of its official title) I’d guess that someone at HQ would have taken that possibilty into account.
My guess is that there may be more to the story.
I’ve read various accounts where lesser medal recommendations were denied, so it’s not likely they would have handed out a MoH for shooting down sitting ducks.
However, even if they were Kamikaze’s enroute, they weren’t necessarily unarmed rookies.
If they’re sacrificing a plane and pilot…I don’t thinlk they’d mind leaving the guns onboard.
And arming them would give them some measure of self defense in an area where the US had air superiority.
Anyone know the rest of the story?
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December 8, 2009 at 4:48 pm