On April 16th, Major John Mitchell was meeting with his fighter squadrons in the confines of the “Opium Den,” the colorfully named headquarters for local air operations on Guadalcanal. Nearly every man there was a veteran pilot. Mitchell himself was a recognized ace with multiple kills. Another pilot, Lieutenant Rex Barber had won a silver star when he destroyed a Japanese destroyer, flying so close that he sheered two feet off the wing of his plane on the attack. With so many able pilots, the decision was made to take Yamamoto in the air.
The attack would involve two squadrons. The first would engage Yamamoto and his fighter escort directly, while the second would climb high in the clouds to screen any Japanese planes responding from nearby airfields. Barber and another pilot named Capt. Tom Lamphier would lead the “hunter” squadron, while Mitchell would take the lead in screening the attack. At dawn on April 18th, the pilots lifted off. They skirted hundreds of miles around the target and circled back, approaching from the angle the Japanese least expected.
The flight plan severely tested the limits of the P-38 fighters, even ones specially equipped with extra fuel tanks. But navigating with only a compass and dead reckoning, Mitchell so skillfully led his squadrons that they reached the intercept point a minute early. The fighters broke off to their respective roles as the pilots scanned the sky for the target. At 7:10 AM, a sharp-eyed pilot spotted Yamamoto’s plane. “Bogeys, 11 O’Clock high,” he reported.” Mitchell gave the order to “skin off your tanks,” as the pilots dove in for the kill. The Japanese planes dove as well, trying to avoid the P38’s as the guns began to bark.
.50 caliber bullets ripped through the air as the Americans engaged their Japanese counterparts in their Mitsubishi Zeros. The hunter squadrons, ignoring the enemy fighter escorts, focused on the bombers, knowing that Yamamoto would be on board one. Barber turned hard to the left, tracking one of the bombers as it tried to dive out of the way while Lamphier took the other. As they did so, a pair of the Mitsubishi escorts went after him. Mitchell, seeing the danger his pilots were in, turned toward the fighters and opened fire. The hunters, meanwhile, pulled the engines of the bombers into their sights and pulled the trigger. The engines erupted into thick smoke as the bombers went down.
The mission accomplished, the pilots turned for home. Only one of the Americans had been shot down. Meanwhile, back in Bougainville, the remains of Yamamoto plane was discovered. Inside the wreckage was his charred body, his hand still clasped on his officer’s sword. Just who shot down Yamamoto has been disputed between Lamphier and Barber ever since. But whatever the case, his death was a serious blow to the country’s morale. Lieutenant Commander Layton’s reasoning for killing him also makes for a decent eulogy. Yamamoto, he said, was the one Japanese admiral “who thinks in bold strategic terms – in that way more American than Japanese. The younger officers and enlisted men idolize him. Aside from the Emperor, probably no man in Japan is so important to civilian morale.”
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Pearl Harbor Attack”. Encyclopedia Britannica. May 2018
“A Reluctant Enemy”. Ian Toll, The New York Times. December 2011