The Last Fighter Pilot Read online

  Copyright © 2017 by Don Brown

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  The highlight of my life was serving my country.

  —Captain Jerry Yellin, U.S. Army Air Force, at the seventieth anniversary reunion of the battle of Iwo Jima, Iwo Jima, Bonin Islands, March 31, 2015

  CONTENTS

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  FOREWORD BY CAPTAIN JERRY YELLIN

  FOREWORD BY MELANIE SLOAN

  HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE

  The Aftermath of World War II

  PREFACE

  Springtime in America

  CHAPTER 1

  The Seventy-Eighth Fighter Squadron

  CHAPTER 2

  The First Night in Hell

  CHAPTER 3

  A Graveyard for Bombers and the Need for Iwo Jima

  CHAPTER 4

  Assessing the Threat

  CHAPTER 5

  Hell Rains from the Skies

  CHAPTER 6

  The Chichi Jima Problem: The Last Impediment for the Fighters

  CHAPTER 7

  Hitting Chichi Jima

  CHAPTER 8

  In the Mind of the Enemy

  CHAPTER 9

  Prelude to a Massacre

  CHAPTER 10

  Massacre of the Night Fighters

  CHAPTER 11

  Jerry Hopes for a Chance

  CHAPTER 12

  The Rain—and News—Breaks

  CHAPTER 13

  On to Japan

  CHAPTER 14

  The Second Empire Mission and the Death of a President

  CHAPTER 15

  Baseball, Softball, and the Southern Boy from Clemson

  CHAPTER 16

  The Raid on Osaka

  CHAPTER 17

  Five Hours over Chichi Jima

  CHAPTER 18

  Heartbreak over Tokyo

  CHAPTER 19

  The Blazing Winds of August

  CHAPTER 20

  Jerry Hears the News

  CHAPTER 21

  The Enemy Stalls

  CHAPTER 22

  Over Tokyo

  EPILOGUE

  The Final Salute

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  CAPTAIN JERRY YELLIN, U.S. Army Air Force—P-51 pilot from New Jersey. Seventy-Eighth Fighter Squadron Group Leader. Credited with one shoot-down. Flew last combat mission of World War II over Japan, six days after the second atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki. Known as the “Last Fighter Pilot.”

  FIRST LIEUTENANT PHILIP SCHLAMBERG, U.S. Army Air Force—P-51 pilot from New York. Jerry Yellin’s wingman on the final combat mission of World War II. Killed on that final mission on August 15, 1945. Last known combat death of World War II. Great-uncle of the American movie star Scarlett Johansson.

  MAJOR GENERAL CURTIS E. LEMAY, U.S. Army Air Force—commanding general, XXI Bomber Command, Pacific Theatre beginning August 1944. Implemented the strategic plan for long range P-51 attacks against the Japanese homeland to be launched from Iwo Jima. Went on to become commander of USAF in Europe. Organized the Berlin Airlift in 1948. Later became chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force.

  BRIGADIER GENERAL ERNEST M. “MICKEY” MOORE, U.S. Army Air Force—commanding general, Seventh Fighter Command, in command of all P-51 missions flown from Iwo Jima, Bonin Islands, against the Japanese homeland, from March of 1945 until the end of the war. Brig Gen Moore reported to Maj Gen LeMay.

  COLONEL JAMES O. “JIM” BECKWITH, U.S. Army Air Force—commander, Fifteenth Fighter Group, which included the Forty-Fifth, Forty-Seventh and Seventy-Eighth Fighter Squadrons (P-51s) and operated off Iwo Jima. Col Beckwith reported to Brig Gen Moore.

  COLONEL KENNETH R. “KEN” POWELL, U.S. Army Air Force—commander, Twenty-First Fighter Group, the second Fighter Group to arrive on Iwo Jima, after the Fifteenth Fighter Group. The Twenty-First Fighter Group included the Forty-Sixth, Seventy-Second, and 531st Fighter Squadrons (P-51s) and operated off Iwo Jima. Col Powell reported to Brig Gen Moore.

  COLONEL BRYAN B. HARPER, U.S. Army Air Force—commander, 506th Fighter Group, the third Fighter Group to arrive on Iwo Jima, which included the 457th, 458th, and 462nd Fighter Squadrons (P-51s). The 506th began arriving on Iwo Jima May 11, 1945. Col Harper reported to Brig Gen Moore.

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL HARVEY JACKSON SCANDRETT, U.S. Army Air Force—deputy group commander, 506th Fighter Group. A veteran of ninety-five combat missions and winner of the Silver Star, and credited with two shoot-downs, Lt Col Scandrett would lead the young 506th Fighter Group on a combat mission against Japan on June 1, 1945. Killed during a monster storm that struck the 506th while in flight to Japan to execute a large-scale combat mission against the Japanese homeland. Prior to his death, Lt Col Scandrett reported to Col Harper.

  MAJOR JAMES M. VANDE HEY—first commanding officer of Seventy-Eighth P-51 Fighter Squadron during initial missions against Japan. Later promoted to brigadier general, U.S. Air Force. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Bronze Star, and credited with multiple shoot-downs of Japanese aircraft. Maj Vande Hey reported to Col Beckwith while commanding the Seventy-Eighth on Iwo Jima.

  MAJOR JAMES TAPP, U.S. Army Air Force—commanding officer of Seventy-Eighth P-51 Fighter Squadron in its final missions against Japan, succeeding Major James Vande Hey, and the first American ace in the air war over Japan. Credited with four shoot-downs in a single day, April 7, 1945. Maj Tapp reported to Lt Col Dewitt Spain, who succeeded Col Beckwith as commander of Fifteenth Fighter Group. Maj Tapp became one of the most prolific American aces of World War II.

  FIRST LIEUTENANT BEAVER ASHLEY KINSEL, U.S. Army Air Force—P-51 pilot from San Antonio, Texas. Member of the Forty-Fifth Fighter Squadron. First P-51 pilot to lose his life operating from home base Iwo Jima. Died while in flight from suspected mechanical failure while on combat air patrol over the Pacific, March 17, 1945. Body never recovered.

  MAJOR GILMER L. “BUCK” SNIPES, U.S. Army Air Force—P-51 pilot from Anderson, South Carolina and commanding officer of the Forty-Seventh Fighter Squadron. Led the first P-51 attacks from Iwo Jima against Japanese ground forces in the Bonin Islands, prior to attacks on the Japanese homeland, in March of 1945.

  CAPTAIN HARRY CRIM, U.S. Army Air Force—P-51 pilot from Miami, Florida. Originally assigned to 531st Fighter Squadron, went on to beco
me one the Air Force’s greatest aces. Scored more kills than any other P-51 pilot operating off Iwo Jima. Displayed heroism in defense against Japanese Banzai attack against Twenty-First Fighter Group, evening of March 25, 1945.

  CAPTAIN ERNEST THOMAS, U.S. Army Air Force—P-61 “Black Widow” pilot. Along with his crew, shot down Japanese “Betty” bomber attacking Iwo Jima, evening of March 25, 1945.

  DR. GEORGE HART, U.S. Army Medical Corps, of Lake Placid, NY—flight surgeon for the Forty-Sixth Fighter Squadron. The only medical officer on duty on the night of March 25, 1945 when the Twenty-First Fighter Squadron was attacked in their tents in a Japanese Banzai Attack. With Japanese bullets flying everywhere, heroically set up an emergency surgical facility in a bulldozed depression to perform immediate surgery of Army Air Force personnel ambushed by the Japanese.

  MAJOR SAM HUDSON, U.S. Army Air Force—commanding officer of the 531st Fighter Squadron. Heroically organized a three-man search-and-rescue party during surprise Japanese Banzai Attack, while under fire, along with Capt Harry Crim and Lt Harry Koke, to quickly bring shot-up pilots to Dr. Hart for Emergency Surgery. Later wounded that night when he took a Japanese grenade at point-blank range. Was relieved as CO of the 531st because of severe injuries from the grenade, and replaced by Capt Harry Crim as commanding officer.

  LIEUTENANT HARRY KOKE, U.S. Army Air Force—P-51 pilot, 531st Fighter Squadron. Along with Maj Sam Hudson, and Lt Harry Crim, saved pilots ambushed in Japanese Banzai attack the evening of March 25, 1945. Even after being shot himself, continued to rescue his fellow pilots.

  TECHNICAL SERGEANT PHILIP JEAN, U.S. Army Air Force—technical sergeant from Texas, assigned to the 549th Night Fighter Squadron, who on the night of March 25, 1945, during the surprise Banzai attack on the Twenty-First Air Group, displayed great heroism by grabbing a Browning Automatic Rifle and single-handedly killing eleven Japanese, while remaining under fire himself. Later lost at sea on a ship coming home from the war. Body never recovered.

  FIRST LIEUTENANT DANNY MATHIS Jr., U.S. Army Air Force—P-51 pilot from Augusta, Georgia. Clemson University ROTC Graduate 1944. Served as wingman to Capt Jerry Yellin on massive air raid against Japan, May 29, 1945. Killed in a monster storm while flying on mission to attack Japan, June 1, 1945.

  FIRST LIEUTENANT DICK SCHROEPPEL, U.S. Army Air Force—P-51 pilot from New Jersey. Shot down over Chichi Jima, Bonin Islands, July 3, 1945, while serving as wingman for Capt Jerry Yellin. Killed by Japanese machine gun fire while attempting to escape in an inflatable life raft.

  CAPTAIN ROBERT B. RICHARDSON, U.S. Army Air Force of Irvine, Kentucky—pilot of U.S. Army OA-10 Catalina, the Army’s version of the Navy’s famous “Flying Boat.” Landed his aircraft in the waters off Chichi Jima on July 3, 1945, under heavy enemy fire, in a daring and dangerous rescue attempt of downed P-51 Pilot Dick Schroeppel.

  CAPTAIN AL SHERREN, U.S. Army Air Force—P-51 pilot from Waterloo, Iowa. Killed in action on a strafing run against the Hyakurigahara Airfield, near Tokyo, July 8, 1945.

  MAJOR BILL SOUTHERLAND, U.S. Army Air Force—former commanding officer of the Seventy-Eighth Fighter Squadron. Killed in mid-air collision over Hawaii, off Haleiwa on December 9, 1943. Maj Southerland died before his squadron made it to Iwo Jima.

  FIRST LIEUTENANT HOWARD EDMONSON, U.S. Army Air Force, Forty-Seventh Fighter Squadron—P-47 pilot. Killed in an accident while flying a training mission over Hawaii, Spring 1944, just before the Seventy-Eighth transitioned to P-51s. Lt Edmonson died before his squadron made it to Iwo Jima.

  FOREWORD BY CAPTAIN JERRY YELLIN

  United States Army Air Force

  On March 7, 1945, seventy-two years from the very day that I write these words, I sat in the cockpit of a P51-D Mustang fighter plane, flying at ten thousand feet above the western Pacific, cutting a northerly course through the sunny afternoon sky toward the red-hot island of Iwo Jima, where sixty-seven thousand American Marines were still locked in battle with thousands of Japanese troops. Just three weeks beyond my twenty-first birthday, I was in many ways still the Jewish kid who grew up in Jersey, just a few years removed from many fun-filled sandlot football and baseball games with my boyhood friends in my neighborhood. I was also the same Jewish kid who had later experienced my first taste of an unfathomable prejudice sweeping the world called anti-Semitism, from some of those same friends, a bitter pill that I did not understand.

  But that afternoon, over the sun-sparkled waters of the Pacific, my mind was focused only on one thing: my mission.

  I had not yet experienced the war, at least not in combat. But like so many young men of my generation, I wanted to get into the fight. I wanted to repay the Japanese for what they had done to our Navy at Pearl Harbor. Now, it was my turn.

  We were the men of the Seventy-Eighth Fighter Squadron, of the Fifteenth Fighter Group, of the Seventh Fighter Command, of the U.S. Army Air Force. Our first assignment was to land on Iwo Jima, a pork-chop-shaped island of only eight square miles, in the midst of flying bullets and exploding mortars. We would become the air vanguard that would execute the final phase of the war against Japan. Our first role was to help the marines on the island by flying close-air support combat missions against twenty-one thousand Japanese troops who still occupied two-thirds of the island. Those missions would occupy the first thirty days of our mission on Iwo Jima.

  Next, once the Japanese were finally defeated on Iwo Jima, our mission would be to provide fighter cover for the B-29s on long-range bombing runs from the Mariana Islands to Japan, and we would also strike and attack Japanese targets in the air and on the ground.

  As my fighter approached Iwo Jima that first day, I looked out the glass canopy covering my cockpit and saw other members of my squadron, the “Bushmasters” of the Seventy-Eighth Fighter Squadron. Most of these pilots were as young as me, and many were younger. Some were in their teens, entrusted alone in the cockpit of a P-51 by their country. Most of us had not yet seen combat. Some could not even drive a car, but all were given the confidence of their country to pilot what was at the time the world’s most sophisticated fighter plane. Now, that might seem incredible to ponder. But then, it was simply our duty.

  None of us knew how long our mission would be. But we knew that it would be a deadly mission. We knew this from the beginning. We were all volunteers. No one was drafted into the Air Corps, later renamed the Army Air Forces. And many who volunteered had not made it this far. I had already lost the lives of five of my squadron buddies on training missions over Hawaii. The death of these five men struck hard. But there would be more loss of life. We all knew this from the beginning, but we were fully prepared to make that sacrifice for the United States.

  On August 15, 1945, five months and eight days after that first flight to Iwo Jima, I was flying a combat mission over Tokyo. Six days had passed since President Truman ordered a second atomic bomb dropped, this time on Nagasaki, on August 9. For the men of the Seventy-Eighth Fighter squadron, and for all the pilots flying off Iwo Jima, we had hoped that the second bomb on August 9 would end the war and that we would never have to fly another mission in combat.

  The president gave the Japanese an opportunity to surrender. We had been ordered to stand down. But August 10 passed, and still, the Japanese refused to surrender. So we were ordered back into the skies, with orders to resume striking Japanese targets-of-opportunity on the Japanese homeland, and to keep attacking until they surrendered.

  My wingman that day was a nineteen-year-old Jewish kid from Brooklyn named First Lieutenant Philip Schlamberg. Phil had a life full of promise and opportunity in front of him. The valedictorian of Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, Phil’s service-entrance test scores were among the very highest in the history of the Army. Because of our common Jewish heritage, and because he was one of our younger pilots, I had naturally taken Phil under my wing.

  On the morning of our final flight, Phil had a premonition that he was going to lose his life. Phil had flown in combat before. Bu
t this mission had a different feel for him. I had found that whenever a pilot had a premonition, that premonition was usually right. I approached our commanding officer, Major Jim Tapp, about grounding Phil for the flight and substituting another wingman. But Phil would have none of it. He was determined to fly the mission, premonition or no premonition.

  It happened shortly after we had attacked an airfield over Tokyo just after noon. We had avoided being hit by antiaircraft fire up to that point, but I was worried about Phil. I told him to stay tight on my wing, and that he would be okay. And he had done just that. We hit the field, and then climbed into a cloud embankment, with Phil flying tight in beside me. When I emerged from the clouds a few minutes later, Phil was gone. I never saw him again.

  When I landed back on Iwo Jima, I learned that the war had been over for several hours, and the emperor had announced cessation of hostilities, even as we attacked that airfield. Phil and I never received the broadcast code on our radios signifying the war’s end.

  Phil Schlamberg, as it turned out, would take his place in history as the last-known combat death of World War II, and together, Phil and I had flown the final combat mission of the war.

  History sometimes serves fascinating slices of irony. With the news emerging in 1945 of the Nazi atrocities against Jews half a world away, how ironic that the war’s final mission would be flown by a couple of Jewish pilots from New York and New Jersey, and that the final combat life in the defense of freedom would be laid down by a teenage Jewish fighter pilot who had not yet learned to even drive a car.

  The Last Fighter Pilot, by Don Brown, is not only my story during the final six months of the air war against Japan from Iwo Jima, but is also the story of many brave fighter pilots with whom I served, the overwhelming majority of whom are long since gone. I lost sixteen of my fellow squadron pilots during the war, men who I knew personally, and eleven of them were killed during the final phase of the air war from Iwo Jima. Most of the others have long since passed into eternity. Now, at the age of ninety-three, I am left standing to speak on their behalf. Our story needs to be told, for the sake of fully completing the history of the war.