Transcripts For CSPAN3 Dogfight Over Tokyo 20240711 : vimars

From the carrier uss yorktown, attacked over japan after receiving word the war ended. The National World War Ii Museum hosted this online event and provided the video. Thank you all for joining us today for whats going to be a great conversation about a really engaging and book that maybe should have been written before john got to it in the last 75 years since the war. Dog fight over tokyo. Its a great book. He is the author of many books, john wukovits. He came to us about ten years ago, we were just talking about this, came and gave a presentation on his book about boyington book and we have not managed to get him back here. We tried and he was going to come in april of this year but of course things got a little out of hand and we had to postpone that event indefinitely to talk on one of his other books. But im sure most of our viewers today know many of johns books. Hell from the heavens, for crew and country, and then tin can titans which won the Samuel Elliott morrison naval literature award the year it came out, probably one of the most prestigious awards thats awarded regarding naval history. So congratulations on that, many years belated. As i mentioned john was supposed to come here in april. And thankfully weve been able to work with our colleagues in the Distance Learning team, chrissy and kate to bring these programs to you all. This one specifically has to do with our theme of the end of the war, the 75th anniversary of the end of the war. And were going to get right to it so we can try to get as many of the audiences questions asked and answered by john. But im going to start off with a handful of my own questions first. John, lets give the audience a brief summary, for those who have not yet read the book, give them a brief summary of dogfight over tokyo, please. Well, its the dogfight over tokyo explains the story of the last four americans to die in combat in world war ii. Now, the by that, i dont mean so say they were the last four men to die, ever. This is in combat. We had thousands, obviously, of veterans who through the decades have passed away from injuries and wounds they received during the war. But these are the last four to actually be in a combat action, and then die. So i tell this story of those four. I also interweave with that the story of the air group of which they were a part, air group 88, and you and i will explain that a little bit more later. Their activities in the final two months of the war. The book shows how a bunch of young aviators, you know hot stuff, arrogant, bragging, theyre ready to go to war, eager to get over there and they really were because they wanted to match their flying skills against the japanese pilots. It shows the gradual transformation of that attitude towards a more of a, hey, i dont want to be here, kind of a feeling. So i take the reader from training in the United States, and then to hawaii and saipan. After that they join the carrier yorktown and operate off the coast of japan in the final couple months of the war. So basically thats what the book is about. Great. What brought you to this book . Why did you decide to write it . When you did. And what resources were out there . What did you use . Okay, i first came across this idea, maybe ten, twelve years ago when i was researching for a biography of admiral hallsie that came out, i think, in 2010 and in there hallsie mentions in his autobiography that on the final day of war some pilots were killed. He said they should never be forgotten. And that struck me. So i put that idea you know, i filed it away because i had other projects coming up. And then finally a few years back i turned to it and thought, well, its an intriguing idea if i could find out enough material to flesh out these four aviators. I mean, they obviously did not survive the war. So what about family . Fortunately, you know, i thought to myself, if i can find two of the four, and get enough information on that, it will work. And i did. I found plenty of information from two of the four families. And so that enabled me to flesh out those two, flplus other material on the third and the fourth aviator as well. So i picked up from kokomo the hobbs family had billy hobbs diary and flight log and photographs and letters and all kinds of things. I interviewed billy hobbs sister nancy who just communicated with her a couple days ago. Shes in mid90s, and going strong. The manda burg family, we have a picture there of dwight billy hobbs. First name was dwight. Everyone called him billy and he was a guy who just loved aviation. His sister nancy said billy was born to fly. As a kid he made those planes out of balsa wood, jeremy, that may be before your time but i used to love playing with those things. Hed make aircraft out of anything. A nearby airfield, he would run out to watch the planes land or especially when barn stormers were coming through town in kokomo, indiana. He just always everything about him was, hey, i want to fly. I love the excitement, the thrill. And so that was what billy hobbs was all about. Then i contacted the mandeberg family, and you have a photo there of Eugene Mandeberg and he was quite opposite from billy. Billy was all excitement, action. You know, he had a good time, dating girls and things like that. Eugene, he was someone who, you know, you called you yeeeugene, didnt say, hey, gene, come over here, it was eugene. It was serious. Studious. He loved reading books. He wanted to be a writer. And, in fact, was. He wrote some columns for the Michigan Daily newspaper, which was on the Ann Arbor University of michigan campus. He had a sharp wit, but not the kind that said, hey, i have a great story to tell you, did you hear the joke about blah, blah, blah, he would watch and comment on what people were doing or how they said something or things like that. His stories were all about social ills of the time. He wrote a short story about a lynching in georgia, the evils of that. Another story about a young soldier who went off to Training Camp and came home with a sharp shooter medal and was bragging to his mom, and she was worried, and he said, mom, dont worry, were only shooting at targets and she said, well, jeesh, my god, he doesnt even understand what hes about to get into. So eugene was the serious one. Whereas billy wanted to get into fighters, Fighter Aircraft specifically, to match his skills with the japanese pilot in aerial combat. Eugene got into fighters because he did not want to fly a torpedo plane or a dive comer whebomber had two or three men. He said i dont want to be responsible for anyone elses death in the air so ill fly a fighter. Then you had the third one, was were not sure which picture you have coming up here, joe saloff from new york. And joe was one of those cocky aviators, you know, you watch tom cruise in the the top gun kind of thing, how they act was pretty much how he was, always had a cigar, it seemed. Of course that picture i have a cigar. But he was known for that. At a party in the United States just before they were going to go over to the pacific joe saloff, he was the wing man for the Squadron Commander richard kromelin. He told kromelins wife i will bring him back safely. Their planes knocked slightly into each other and kromelin went spinning to his death. The fourth one, howdy harrison was a veteran aviator, had already seen some action in the pacific and he was a father of a couple children. One, howdy in that picture is in the middle, being held up in celebratory fashion by husband buddies. He was the subject of a fascinating rescue at sea while they were off the coast of japan. He had to land his plane in the sea of japan and they had a dumbo, the nickname of the aircraft, flew across through thick overcast. It was horrible conditions. But they succeeded in rescuing him pretty much right from under the noses of the japanese defenses, the way the newspapers described it. He had two children. One he had never seen because the child was born after they went to the pacific. So those were the four aviators. The book focuses on the first two, billy hobbs and Eugene Mandeberg. It was interesting when they were in training Eugene Mandeberg met a gal in new york city, sonja la veen, and they fell in love and planned to be married once he returned. And so thats a prominent feature in the book. They obviously did not get married. But it turned out that sonja, who was still alive, and is today in new york city, so i was able to interview sonja about her recollections of her love from 75 years ago. Yeah, one of the things about the book that really drew me in is basically what we do here at the museum by sharing the personal stories, by using those personal accounts and the fact that we do have the fortune of being around those who were living during that time. John, you had mentioned they were operating off the coast of japan. When we think of the air war over japan, i think nine out of nine people would probably think of the b29 raids that were launching from the marianis islands. Tell us about these operations, what was the purpose, how close were they getting, just tell us about the operations beyond the b29 heavy bombers. Yeah, these were quite different, obviously. The smaller aircraft, fighters, torpedo planes and dive bombers. They had, under admiral hallsie, the third fleet was stationed off the coast of japan, and since it was a Fast Carrier Task force they could attack one installation factory and shipyard in japan and then a couple days later be 200 or 300 miles away and attack something else. Their purpose, before the atom bombs were dropped was to hit these targets, the military installations, armaments, factories, et cetera to prepare the way for the scheduled november invasion of japan itself, which was supposed to be a massive operation, obviously. So their purpose was to eliminate as many of those military targets as possible. After the atom bombs were dropped, it changed. Instead of hitting those targets to prepare for the eventual invasion they were to hit those targets to prod the japanese to the peace table. Keep hitting them hard, hallsie kept saying that, weve got to keep hitting them, with everything weve got, even on the last day of the war, he said do you think we have enough left for one more strike to get it in . He was under orders to do that. Hallsie had some ulterior motives. I dont know if you want me to get into that now or later. Well get into admiral hallsie later as we talk about the decision to launch the mission. Okay, do that later. Now, the air group 88 off the coast of japan, their normal operation each strike was or each mission day they would have a morning and an afternoon strike. It would entail three parts, there would be two sweeps by Fighter Aircraft of the target area to eliminate antiaircraft batteries and clear the way for the dive bombers and torpedo planes to follow. They would have one of those in the morning. Two sweeps followed by the strike of the dive bombers and torpedo planes. They would then have another one in the afternoon. They had 12 of those in the little more than a month that they were off the coast of japan. The missions that were running, just for our nonpacific historians, but the more european audience members that are watching today, reminded me a lot of the predday invasion in normandy and the missions that they were the 8th air force, the 9th air force to blow bridges and Communication Centers to basically soften up the landing ground. Thats a great comparison. So they were on the cv10, the yorktown. Tell us d th they had a lot o time in between missions, a lot of time to ship out from the United States, tell us about life on board with the crew members of the yorktown. Yeah, the as i said, they had the 12 strike days, mission days, and they were there, well say five weeks. So there was time while the carrier was moving into position for another attack. The air group, first of all, a boarded Aircraft Carrier you pretty much had two crews. You had the Ships Company of about 2,700 officers and enlisted. The Ships Company, their task was to take care of the carrier and get it ready to launch aircraft. Nothing more than that. They existed for the air group. The air group was a separate crew of about 300 aviators, divided into four squadrons, a fighter squadron, bombing squadron, torpedo planes and a bombing, fighting squadron, their aircraft. They were a separate section aboard the carrier. Now, the yorktowns Ships Company would stay with the yorktown. They would board a carrier for up to six months and then they were rotated out so that they could teach what they knew to training aviators, and be incorporated into other squadrons because they wanted some experience fighters in there. In their off time, ill call it, they were generally in the ready room, four ready rooms, one for each of the four squadrons. The ready rooms i was at the yorktown, its floating, berthed off of that picture, its point there in south carolina. Theyre not as large as we might think. Theyre cluttered. But they spent all their time there. Thats where they would go to get the final information before a mission. And in the meantime they would be there playing cards or smoking ortizing one another, or whatever the case may be. So the aviators that i interviewed told me, yeah, that was pretty much our home base. The ready room, we had ours and then the dive bomber pilots had theirs, et cetera, et cetera. So that was pretty much it. There were off the coast of japan, a few hours of intense lethal activity, interspersed with many hours of, hey, lets fill the time with whatever we can. The timeline, i think, is important, i think in most popular memory you have august 6th as the hiroshima bombing. That led to the japanese decision to surrender but there was a week plus lull in between the first bombs drop and the actual emperors message is broadcast. I think that gets us to the august 15th mission. Can you give us a little bit of background on that mission . As you said, they were continuing to deliver their payloads on the japanese because they had not surrendered, but talk a little bit about that window and ill ask a follow up question when you finish. Sure. First of all, the missions theres a nice map of the final flight. Their missions, excuse me, when day first arrived, were against general targets that they wanted to soften up for the invasion. After the atom bombs, tflyers, everybody, the Ships Company as well, they wanted to get out of there. The war is practically over. Lets not keep this up. Why do we need to attack an airfield when an atom bomb has wiped out two cities . So they couldnt understand the necessity for keeping to go out and face these antiaircraft batteries. You have to try and understand what its like to fly into that, into that flak. Theyre shooting straight up at you and youre diving down and you cant weave to avoid the fire because the planes have to lock in on their targets. So you just as one aviator told me, he said theres no skill to it, its just luck, pure luck. We hated every minute of it. Well, these guys didnt want to sacrifice their lives when the war was going to end anytime. But they followed orders, obviously. And they went out on a couple of missions after the atom bombs were dropped and a couple guys were killed. August 14th, one of the men recorded in his diary, god, i hope we dont have to go out on another Mission Tomorrow and then he added a little bit later in his diary, well, father moody, the catholic chaplain came out to say, no dice, were going on a strike. And the next morning they had to do that. Hobbs was with a team, hobbs mandeberg, harrison and saloff were with a team of 12 hellcat fighters. Hobbs was not supposed to be on this flight. He was scheduled for a later day, another team of four was supposed to go. But howdy harrison, the team leader, of which hobbs was a part, traded places with that other team because he said, hey, billy needs one more mission for promotion to lieutenant jg. He needs one more to get promoted to lieutenant jg, so will you switch with me . Well, that other team was happy to switch. Billy wasnt necessarily overwhelmed with joy at this. But it was arranged and off they went. Excuse me. Even though one of the pilots said, is this really necessary . Well, they took off a little bit after 4 00 in the morning, the 12 hell cats did. It was a colloloudy day. So as he got closer to japan two of the 12 hell cats were ordered to a higher altitude so that they could relay messages to and from the carrier yorktown. So now the hellcat number was down to ten that proceeded on to the target. After that a team of four, led by a guy named marvin odom became lost and the action report put it somewhat unusually. It said odoms team became lost, and these are the quotes, a finger of overcast. I was never sure what to make of that. It doesnt sound like a very cloudy area. He became lost and those four planes were now gone. The hellcat number was down to six that continued toward their target, which on the map that is showing was just south of tokyo. A little bit to the northeast of the dotted line there. So they continued on toward tokyo. As they got near atsugi airfield, they were ready to attack, getting ready to attack when the commander contacted them and said, hey, stop, we just received word the japanese have agreed to cessation of hostilities. Abort your mission and return to the carrier. Of course that news elated all of them, all six of them, hey, were going to get back, we survived the war, were going to be going home, all those thoughts went screaming through their minds. They turn back and you can see on the map there, just north of atsugi airfield, and were on their way out to tokyo bay, when 15 to 20 japanese fighters jumped them. They became involved in a furious dogfight. Joe saloff, one of men who survived said he saw joe saloffs plane going down over tokyo bay, but saloff parachuted out. He saw that. Thats all he knew. Then that same pilot saw another hellcat explode in the air, but that guy got out by parachuting as well. The other two of the hellcats to be down that day were heldcats that smashed into farmland or terrain around the yokohama area there. That left two guys who got back to the carrier yorktown. Four who did not. Four who were shot down. The air group was crest fallen. One of the guys said, you know, this was supposed to be our happiest day, the wars over, but it wasnt. It was their saddest day. Because