Every Day a Nightmare: American Pursuit Pilots in the Defense of Java, 1941-1942

CHAPTER TWELVE: “How Can We Operate against Such Odds?”

258 CHAPTER TWELVE “How Can We Operate against Such Odds?” from 0500 on saturday, February 21, sixteen pilots were standing alert at Ngoro Field for a possible interception order from the Dutch Air Defense Command. At 0930 the order came through: a Japanese bomber force had been picked up heading for Soerabaja. With their commander lost the day before, Capt. Grant Mahony—the highest ranking of the remaining pursuiters —would be leading them off on the mission at the head of A flight, followed by Jack Dale leading B flight. Shortly afterwards, Walt Coss took off with his C flight, followed by Ed Kiser at the head of D flight.1 When A and B flights reached the Soerabaja area, they began patrolling at twenty-one thousand feet. Shortly afterwards, they spotted two formations of Betty bombers about fifty miles out to sea, but to George Parker in B flight they appeared to turn and head back north. With no interception possible, the eight pursuiters started heading back to their base. Suddenly, they were jumped by six Zeros from above that they had not seen earlier. Several of the Americans entered into dogfights with the Zeros but were forced to dive away. All escaped except for Mahony’s wingman, George Hynes, who had been hit in the diving pass by the Zeros and was seen to crash on the beach.2 In the meantime, C and D flights had spotted the bombers as they were returning from their attack on Soerabaja harbor. In Coss’s C flight, B. J. Oliver , Gene Wahl, and Wally Hoskyn went after a lone Betty they spotted heading northeast out over the Java Sea. After about a fifteen-minute chase, the Betty went into a shallow dive in an effort to outrun its pursuers. Oliver was now in the lead, with Wahl and Hoskyn about a half mile behind and a thousand feet higher. Oliver’s first burst—a short one at twenty degrees deflection , appeared to be ineffective, so he positioned himself directly astern for Operate against Such Odds? 259 a medium burst. Sighting along the top edge of the Betty’s fuselage to allow for a slight drop in trajectory, Oliver fired again. He was disappointed to see that his tracers were flying where he had aimed instead of where he had intended.3 Suddenly, his radio crackled; someone was yelling that his P-40 was smoking. Oliver couldn’t see any smoke but feared his ship must have been hit by unseen Zeros that had dived on him. Wally Hoskyn knew that his P-40 had been hit; after his one diving pass on the Betty he cried out on the radio that his engine had been hit and that he would try to glide back to the Java coast and bail out.4 Following the diving attack by the Zeros, C and D flights turned and headed back to Java and their Ngoro base. Fortunately, the Zeros did not give pursuit. As Wahl and Oliver reached the Java coast, they noticed Hoskyn’s P-40 on the beach. It appeared to Oliver that he had attempted a wheels-down landing and had nosed over. Or had he bailed out as he said he would?5 After landing back at Ngoro between 1115 and 1130, the fourteen returned pilots expressed concern about the fate of their two comrades. No one was sure about Hynes, but they figured that Hoskyn was okay. He was seen to have had plenty of altitude when he began his glide back to land. But no one was prepared to go up immediately on another mission that the 17th had agreed to earlier: four P-40s to provide protection for B-17s expected back at A P-40E coming in to land at Ngoro Field after a combat mission, late February 1942. Courtesy Peg Baum Hague, from Jesse Hague film. 260 Chapter Twelve Singosari at 1200 after a bombing mission to Bali. There would not be enough time to take off and reach high altitude over Singosari Field by noon.6 The 17th Pursuit was becoming dispirited from the unrelenting and unequal combat with the Zeros. As Hubert Egenes, flying as element leader in B flight that day, wrote his best friend, “It’s no fun when the Jap Zeros come at you. You wish mighty fast that you were thousands of miles away...