F. X. Holden
Okinawa: This is the Future of War
Ripples: 1941
“The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: 'Too late.'
Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy; too late in realizing the mortal danger; too late in preparedness; too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance, too late in standing with one's friends.”
January 1941, Chengdu, China
“I heard you took up one of my shiny new airplanes yesterday,” Major ‘Buffalo’ Ling-Sui, commander of the Chinese Air Force 5th Pursuit Group, grunted as he dropped his flight jacket beside him and sat down to his rice porridge in a half-deserted mess. It was dawn and most of the other pilots of the Chengdu airbase were still asleep, exhausted from unrelenting combat against the Japanese air force and some much-needed celebrations the night before. “And you broke it.”
His opposite number, Major Wong ‘John’ Cheng, commander of the 3rd Pursuit Group, looked up from his own breakfast and watched the short, stocky Californian ease onto the bench across from him. The two had served together from the early days; Guangdong Air Force Academy, 1938, John always a promotion ahead of his hot-headed fellow American until attrition had finally allowed Buffalo to catch up with him and win command of his own fighter Group.
“It broke itself,” John told him. “I’d barely got it to 2,000 feet before the engine lost power and I had to turn back.”
Buffalo pointed his spoon at the man from Seattle, “It has a two-speed supercharger. You engaged it too early, I bet. You need to be at least at 5,000 feet before you engage that doohickey or the high air density will cause it to blow.”
“While you are still fiddling with the supercharger on your shiny new Chaika-3 and trying to catch up, my good old Seagulls will already be in the fight,” John scowled, “Knocking down Jap bombers.”
“Dream on, mac,” Buffalo said. “I’ll be climbing at twice the rate of your old kite, I have a top speed sixty miles an hour faster than you and my machines can mount both guns and bombs.” He spat a little porridge as he spoke, “You’re just jealous.”
“We’ll see,” John said. “Until you get them dirty, you’re all talk. Hey, did you get tapped for this new unit?”
“The ‘American Volunteer Group’?” Buffalo snickered. “Yeah, I got a call. I’ve been here three years, I’m heading up two pursuit squadrons, I’m a damn Major in the Chinese Air Force — you know what they offered me?”
“No, what?”
“Flight commander!” Buffalo laughed. “First Lieutenant! What a joke. I called a guy I know in Burma, where they’re forming up. He says there’s 200 men and only three of them are Chinese-American and they’re just mechanics, not pilots.” He pushed his bowl away, “Flying Tigers, pah! Forget that. What about you?”
"Same.” He was lying. John had been offered a squadron command and a Captain’s rank. But it was still a step down and though his allegiance to his adopted land was strong, he couldn’t help feel he would be able to do more where he was, leading combat-hardened Chinese pilots rather than rookie Americans. Yes, the Americans had superior aircraft to the Russian biplanes China fielded; he’d read a report about the P-40 Warhawk with its six .50 caliber guns and top speed a hundred and forty miles an hour faster than his Russian Seagull. But it had yet to be tested against the newest Japanese fighter, the Mitsubishi Zero, which had a similar top speed, lighter armament, but a dramatically better rate of climb and turning circle than the Warhawk. It would be like pitting a heavyweight boxer against a judo black belt — whichever opponent tried to match the other one’s fighting style would probably lose.
That was as far as they were going to get on the topic that day. At that moment an intelligence officer of the Jingbao came running in, “Scramble!” he yelled, searching the mess frantically and his eyes landed on John and Buffalo just as the air raid bell began to ring across the airfield.
“His or mine?” Buffalo asked, standing up.
“Both!” the man said. “Third and Fifth Groups, we have Japanese dive bombers, twenty minutes out!”
Buffalo picked up his flight jacket and swung it over his shoulder, “How many?”
“Twenty plus!”
“Just the way I like it, plenty of targets,” Buffalo said, clapping John on the back as they jogged out of the mess. “Now we’ll see who gets into the action first!”
Buffalo hadn’t been bragging. His new Russian Chaika-3 biplanes proved much faster getting to their mission altitude of 20,000 feet, though out of the nine aircraft the 5th Group scrambled, three had to turn back with engine troubles, leaving Buffalo on top cover with only six aircraft. John followed him up, with nine Seagulls of his 3rd Group. Both aircraft had open cockpits, making it impractical to go much higher than about 20,000 feet and very difficult to use their new radios at any altitude.
That hadn’t been a problem in the early war when they were facing Japanese aircraft that suffered from similar restrictions, but since the previous September, they had seen Japan bring the Mitsubishi Zero to the fight. It could fly right off the decks of the new Japanese carriers, giving ground-based plane spotters almost no time to report. Luckily the agile new Japanese fighters were handicapped by having to escort older, slower, biplane dive bombers like the Aichi D1A, which was slower than even his Seagull. If the Zeros had been allowed to roam free across the front line, John was sure China would soon have very few fighters or pilots left to oppose them.
“Fifth Group, we will take sector 11, you stay high and cover sector 9, acknowledge,” he yelled, the noise of the wind around his aircraft almost drowning out the sound from the radio is his helmet.
“Fifth acknowledges; don’t worry, if they’re here, we’ll find them,” Buffalo responded. “Moving up to angels 22.”
John looked right and left to check his wingmen were in position, then scanned the sky above him. The Japanese fighters liked to use their height advantage, falling on the Chinese like hawks. In his first engagement with a force of Zeros, he’d met 13 of the Japanese fighters coming out of the sun, with 24 of his Seagulls. Within minutes he’d lost four men killed, two wounded and claimed only two Japanese damaged before ordering his men to break off. He had not been taken by surprise since, but his loss to kill ratio had not improved much either.
Checking his fuel, he saw he’d used a third of a tank already. The small Chinese biplanes weren’t made for long patrols, so he hoped the enemy would oblige by showing itself soon.
“Japanese force entering sector 9, angels 15,” his radio crackled as his ground controller broke in. He pulled his stick right and kicked in some rudder to put his squadron into a banking turn that would make them harder to surprise. With practiced ease, he scanned the airspace below and above, behind, abeam and ahead of him, before easing his stick over and doing the same in a slow banking turn to port.
“Fifth Group, I have 10…15…20 make that 20 attack aircraft at your seven o’clock, don’t look like they’ve seen you. Orders?”
John wrenched his head around further and looked over his left shoulder, just in time to catch the glint of sunlight off the perspex canopies of the Japanese fighter bombers. They appeared to be unescorted, which bitter experience had taught him would not be the case.