Dive-Bombers—The First Precision-Guided Munitions

Mention dive-bombers in any gathering of World War 2 enthusiasts, and you will instantly conjure up images of the ugly, bent-wing Ju88 Stuka, the German Luftwaffe’s primary close-support aircraft. Fighter pilots will sneeringly call dive-bombers, “A fighter pilot’s dream,” because they believe they are easy to shoot down. Very few people in and out of the military are aware of the critical role that dive-bombers played in winning the Second World War for the Allies.

The term, “dive-bombing,” is precisely descriptive. To execute such an attack, a pilot flying at an altitude of anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 feet altitude puts his aircraft into a steep dive and aims it directly as the target. U.S. Navy procedure called for a 70˚ dive. German and Japanese aircraft were limited to 65˚ dives. Using special dive brakes to maintain control during the high-speed dive, the pilot drops down to 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the target before pulling the his bomb release. As the bomb rotates out on its “crutch” to clear the propeller and falls away, the aviator pulls back on his controls, experiencing a force of six times normal gravity as the plane levels out at low altitude. Five seconds or less after bomb release, it strikes the target. The bomb has been controlled by the pilot’s brain to within seconds of impact.

Dive-bombing was first tried above the trenches in WW1. Heavy losses of aircraft and aircrew discouraged widespread adoption of the technique. European air forces largely ignored the concept in the interwar years. But as carrier-borne naval aviation developed rapidly in the 1920s, naval air forces revived the idea. Hitting a fast-moving and maneuvering ship in the open sea presents a complex problem. With both aerodynamic and weather forces acting on both aircraft and missiles, hitting a moving ship from a horizontal bombing position remained an unlikely proposition. The USN pressed forward with development of dive-bombers to solve the problem.

In 1931, the famed American Director, John Ford, released a film called Helldivers. Clark Gable and Wallace Berry portrayed two chief petty officers that flew dive-bombers. A typical Hollywood action film of the time, it did feature American naval aviation at that time and brought dive-bombing to the attention of all naval powers. That same year, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) issued its specification for a carrier-based dive-bomber.

At the 1931 Cleveland Air Races, German ace Ernst Udet observed a dive-bombing demonstration by Helldivers. The concept soon enthralled him. He convinced his WW1 commander, Hermann Goering, to buy two export versions of the Curtiss F11C-2 Goshawk Helldiver, for evaluation by the fledgling Luftwaffe. Later put in charge of aircraft development by Goering, Udet ordered that all German bombers be capable of dive-bombing. This requirement hindered development of a strategic bombing force in the Luftwaffe.

The spectacular successes of Germany’s Panzer columns operating with continuous dive-bomber support are a matter for separate discussion. The dive-bomber’s critical contributions to final victory were in the realm of naval warfare. Dive-bombing proved key to successes of both the USN and the IJN during the Pacific War.

In 1941, over half the aircraft on USN carriers were SBDs (Scout-Bomber-Douglas Aircraft) Dauntlesses. Thirty-six SBDs were divided into two squadrons, a Scouting squadron (VS) and a Bombing squadron (VB). In practice the squadrons were used interchangeably.

For a plane approaching obsolescence in 1941, the Dauntless was a remarkably capable warbird. Thirty-three feet long with a wingspan of almost 42 feet, the SBD had a 1,200 horsepower, 9-cylinder radial engine. It had a range of over 1,000 miles and aerodynamically pleasing shape. A long greenhouse canopy housed the pilot and radio operator/gunner. A 1,000-pound bomb could be carried on a “crutch” beneath the fuselage, and hard-points on each wing could bear 250-pound bombs. A typical combat load was either one 1,000-pounder or one 500-pounder and two 250-pounders. The Dauntless had a significant gun armament. The pilot controlled two .50-caliber machine guns firing through the propeller. The rear gunner had a pair of .30-caliber guns on a flexible mount. The pilot’s guns actually outranged those on a Japanese Zero fighter. The Dauntless was even frequently used in combat air patrol situations against slower torpedo bombers. It had a combat kill ratio of 3.2 to 1—better than some fighters.

In the first year of the Pacific War, SBDs sank six aircraft carriers, one battleship, three cruisers, a submarine, and fourteen transports, approximately 20 percent of IJN prewar tonnage. Of IJN warship losses during the Pacific War, dive bombers sank over 170. Submarines accounted for another 140 sinkings, and surface ships about 40 others.  Dive-bombers thus proved crucial to final victory by the USN.

SBDs will figure prominently in my next two novels about the Pacific War. I am currently writing about the Battle of the Coral Sea in Endure The Cruel Sun, sequel to my bestselling novel Hold Back the Sun. The Americans have just found the IJN light carrier, Shōhō.  Japan has won every battle to date. How will this one turn out?

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on September 15, 2015.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure The Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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How Japan Came to Dominate Naval Aviation

'Kido Butai'  by Marii Chernev

Three weeks ago, I set aside my writing to concentrate on getting my left knee replaced with a new titanium alloy and plastic marvel. My leg is recovering nicely, and daily physical therapy is rapidly improving my use of the new joint. The time has come to return to the war in the Southwest Pacific Theater in May of 1942.

I left almost equally balanced American and Japanese naval air forces searching for each other in the vastness of the Coral Sea northeast of Australia.  Behind the Japanese strike force, a large invasion convoy is poised to spring through the Jounard Passage at the tip of New Guinea and seize the Allied bastion of Port Moresby, the last barrier before Australia.  How could a nation less that a hundred years removed from the Middle Ages be in a position to strike a deathblow to the world’s two foremost naval powers?

The dawn of fixed-wing aviation came at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Hardly had the Wright brothers taken to the air than forward-thinking naval and military officers recognized the advantages that aircraft might offer in battle. Of prime importance was simply locating the enemy. Naval commanders had been limited to the range of vision of lookouts posted atop mastheads since naval warfare commenced. Aircraft promised to extend that vision far beyond the horizon. Planes operating from shore bases were almost immediately available. But what was really needed were aircraft that could operate from ships at sea. Both Britain’s Royal Navy (RN) and the United States Navy began experimenting with various ideas even before World War I.

The use of seaplanes with floats, that allowed takeoffs and landings on water, became an obvious first step. Seaplane tenders, equipped with heavy cranes to transfer the aircraft between ship and water, became the first aircraft carriers.  The RN pressed ahead throughout the war, experimenting with foredeck landplane launch platforms, and then tacking on separate afterdeck landing decks with arrestor cables. Finally, the various concepts were combined on HMS Furious to provide a single long flight deck cleared of superstructure. On 2 August 1917, RN Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning made the first landing of a plane on a ship under way. The modern aircraft carrier had arrived.

Nowhere was the emerging naval aviation concept embraced more readily than by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). When Japan’s 19^th Century Emperor Meiji decided to modernize Japan, he and his governments decided to pattern their armed forces on those of the most successful European examples. Thus, Germany was chosen as the model Army. The British RN was the obvious choice for the new navy. Ties between the RN and IJN remained close well into the 20th Century. Japan actually conducted the world’s first successful naval launched air raid in September 1917, employing seaplanes from seaplane carrier IJN Wakamiya.

The IJN closely followed the RN aviation developments. As valued Allies against the Central Powers, IJN officers were allowed to observe operations and study the first purpose-built carrier design for HMS Hermes. Although begun later, IJN Hōshō became the world’s first built-from-scratch carrier.

In the 1920s, the western powers sought to limit the naval arms race by treaty limitations. Japan emerged from these negotiations very dissatisfied with the battleship and battle cruiser numbers and tonnage allowed to their empire. One area where the IJN retained significant flexibility was that of aircraft carrier construction. They took full advantage of this opportunity.

Japan immediately decided to convert to aircraft carriers two large battle cruisers then under construction. One was damaged beyond repair by an earthquake, but the second, IJN Akagi, went forward. An incomplete battleship, IJN Kaga, became the second new carrier. As soon as these ships joined the fleet, the IJN integrated them into fleet operations and developed their naval aviation doctrine. In the 1930s, more ships designed from the keel up filled out the fleet. IJN Sōryū and Hiryū were next off the building ways. At the end of the 1930s, IJN Shōkaku and IJN Zuikaku added additional punch to the fleet.

Japanese naval aviation experts gained further advantage because they were actually at war during the 1930s. New ideas could be tested under combat conditions. Unlike their western counterparts, IJN aviators came to believe that sea-based airpower should always be concentrated as much as possible. Raids combining the air groups of all ships available became their standard at a time that other navies tended to parcel out their carriers one or two at a time to protect their battle fleets. In a major war, IJN aviation was assigned the mission of seizing control of the air from the very beginning by massive attacks. The IJN understood “shock and awe” as early as the 1930s.

As fortune would have it, Japan’s rigid seniority-based promotion system elevated an aviation specialist, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, to the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet at this crucial point in history. Yamamoto had at his disposal a cadre of talented “young Turk” aviation staff officers and commanders, such as Lieutenant Commander Minoru Genda and Lieutenant Commander Mitsuo Fuchida. On their urging, he organized all six of his large carriers into the 1^st air Fleet, commonly known as the Kido Butai (Strike Force). To compliment the carrier forces. Yamamoto also built up a large force of twin-engine, long range shore based bombers especially trained in bomb and torpedo attacks against ships. Named the 11^th Air Fleet, this force could deploy rapidly to newly conquered bases to extend control of the air by hundreds of miles.

Japan’s aviation industry kept pace with the forward thinking navy visionaries. By 1940, the torpedo bombers and dive bombers being produced were at least as good as their western contemporaries. And in the Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighters, Japan possessed the finest carrier fighter in the world at that time. Designed to operate both off carriers and in support of the 11^th Air Fleet, the Zero possessed a phenomenal range of almost 1,200 miles.

Choosing IJN pilots and their training regimen were highly selective, resulting in almost perfect human specimens. For instance, candidates had to be able to see the primary navigation guide stars in broad daylight. Intense physical and instructive training characterized the program. Only a small percentage of each class actually achieved their coveted wings. Naval aviators were the elite of the elite. Combat experience in China honed this cadre of experts into a finely sharpened rapier. The process worked well in the relatively low level combat of the 1930s, but it was incapable of producing a large number of replacements to meet the demands of high intensity combat.

Kido Butai and the 11^th Air Fleet performed superbly in the opening months of the Pacific War, savaging the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and sinking the Royal Navy’s battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battle cruiser Repulse in the Gulf of Siam. The protagonists of my second novel, Hold Back The Sun, battled elements of Japan’s naval aviation in the skies over Borneo and Java and over the seas in between. Chased out of the Dutch East Indies, my characters now face battle in the seas and skies of the Coral Sea northeast of Australia in my current work-in-progress, Endure The Cruel Sun. Will they meet defeat yet again? Or is fortune finally deserting the victory-drunk Japanese forces?

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on September 15, 2015.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure the Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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On My Way Back—Doing the Physical Therapy

Measuring Knee Angle

I’ve had my new left knee for over ten days now. It has mostly been a positive experience. There has, of course, been pain, but not nearly so much as I had been led to expect. Modern anesthesiology blocked a great deal of the pain at times when it would normally been the worst. But current physical therapy practice is to begin moving replacement joints very soon after installation. My sainted mother used to say that, “Old age isn’t for cowards,” and the same can be said for surgery. But the pain is very manageable. And I can say without equivocation that I’m already more capable than I was before the operation.

Physical Therapy is key to recovery from any major injury or surgery. I learned this lesson well over thirty years ago when I originally broke my left leg. Proper exercise to recondition and strengthen the muscles and ligaments around the effected joint(s) are imperative. Physical Therapists are trained to evaluate progress in joint recovery and determine the next level of workload necessary to continue improving the situation.

I had my knee replaced at the Sentara OrthoJoint Center® in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Center has an outstanding staff of Orthopedic surgeons, Orthopedic Patient Navigators, nurses, and Physical Therapists who are dedicated to the most effective recovery for their patients. From the time one wakes up from the operation, the emphasis is to move, move, move! Inactivity is the enemy of those who would be physically capable, especially those of us with a few years under our keels. Complete success for every patient is their minimum standard of performance. I owe a great debt of gratitude to these consummate medical professionals!

Fortunately, My medical insurance allowed me to have home nursing and physical therapy services from the KARYA HOME CARE INC. These began immediately after my release from the hospital. I was assigned a skilled nurse, an occupational therapist, and a physical therapist. All three women are extremely knowledgeable and have skill in motivating their patients.

I have been continually surprised by my progress. After walking on a severely bowed leg for decades, I had expected to have difficulties adjusting. Instead, I felt immediately at home with equal length legs and my center of gravity back in the right place. I went from  shaky performance on a walker to easy walking with a cane in just a few days. My new situation feels “normal.”

I must say a few words about pain management. From well before the operation, advice from doctors, friends, and relatives who have had similar work done was to, “stay ahead of the pain.” In other words, don’t wait to try to overcome pain—preempt it ahead of time. That’s good advice, even if there are some negative trade-offs.

I’m not a fan of opioid painkillers. I don’t like what they do to my thought processes. I find it almost impossible to write while under their influence. I even found composing a simple Tweet difficult. Fortunately, my daughter/publicist, Karen B. Williams, has stepped in to keep things moving.  

Any reader of my novels realizes at once that I have great respect for medical professionals.  From World War II to Vietnam and beyond, many of my pages are peopled with doctor and nurse characters. In fact, one of the main characters in my upcoming book ENDURE THE CRUEL SUN, sequel to my bestselling novel HOLD BACK THE SUN, is a US Navy nurse! I believe that my personal medical experiences should make my writing about these heroes more authentic.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on September 15, 2015.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure the Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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Built in the 1930s - All Original Parts - Some Still Work

Warren recovering in his favorite recliner.

For several years, I have seen t-shirts advertised with the above caption. I always meant to get one. I was, after all, born in 1936. But now it’s too late. I don’t still have all my original parts. Last Monday my orthopedic surgeon flattened the surfaces of my left knee, cut mortises in the new surfaces, and installed a full knee replacement joint. My weight is now borne through plastic bearings onto titanium alloy surfaces. I am already walking on the new joint (with a walker). There is some pain, but I can manage it. And for the first time in 33 years, both my legs are the same length.

My surgeon and anesthesiologist used a series of pain blockers that delayed the onset of pain for about twenty-four hours. When I initially woke up from the operation, I felt hardly any pain at all. I was able to do all the exercises ordered by my physical therapists with no problems. I was beginning to think that this operation was a snap when the pain blockers started to wear off. That got my attention in a hurry!

The second day following the surgery was definitely the worst as far as pain was concerned. One just has to tough it out! Almost continuous therapy to straighten and then flex the new joint can definitely be quite uncomfortable. So can using a walker be. I mastered that art fairly quickly; it seemed to come natural to me. However, throw rugs are booby traps of the most serious order. All our rugs are now piled in the dining room.

It appears that how fast I will be able to get “back to battery” will depend largely on me. The harder I work, the better off I’ll be.  And the sooner I’ll get back to writing on Endure the Cruel Sun, the sequel to my best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun.  The Battle of the Coral Sea beckons.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on September 15, 2015.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure the Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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American Angels-The Military Nurses of Bataan and Corregidor

When the Japanese invaded the Philippine Islands in December of 1941, over 100 U.S. Navy and U.S. Army nurses were stationed at military bases in the islands. The tragic and heroic story of these women is almost lost to history. None among the “Greatest Generation” would ever forget them, but those legendary people are almost gone now.

Early in the war, most of the army nurses were concentrated at Sternberg Army Hospital in Manila. After the destruction of the Cavite Navy Yard by Japanese bombing, the Navy doctors and nurses from the hospital at Cañacao also went to Sternberg.

Nearby buildings were confiscated and converted to medical facilities. Events soon overtook these preparations. Most of General Douglas MacArthur’s Filipino-American Army were half-trained local recruits. Of the about 12,000 American troops, none was an organized division.  He had two battalions of light tanks, but also a division of horse cavalry. Control of the air had been lost to the Japanese in the first few days. Realizing that his forces could not hold the Japanese short of Manila, the general ordered delaying actions while his troops retreated into the Bataan Peninsula to create a stronghold there. On December 26^th, he declared Manila an open city.

Over 80 Army nurses and one Navy nurse, Ann A. Bernatitus, operating room nurse for a Navy surgeon, were bussed to Bataan. The other eleven Navy nurses remained in Manila and were captured.

The nurses went to Bataan dressed in their starched white cotton uniforms, woefully inadequate to work in a jungle combat hospital. Upon arrival at Lamay, where Hospital Number 1 was to be located, they were issued Army Air Force mechanics coveralls--all size 46--and “boondocker” boots. Fortunately Chinese tailors lived in Lamay and retailored the coveralls. For headwear, the nurses wore M1917 “soup plate” steel helmets.

At least open-walled sheds were available for wards at Hospital No. 1. Warehouses held old iron beds stored since the First World War. The nurses had to assemble the beds and organize the wards. Casualties in the hundreds poured in from the front. OR nurses worked hours on end assisting their surgeons. Ward nurses cared for dozens of patients apiece, then hundreds. By April, ward nurses were responsible for over 400 patients each. With Japan controlling the air, patients had to be transferred from the front at night. Surgeons toiled all night long under portable operating lights, sometimes continuing on into the day. The nurses changed dressings and tended to other patient needs by flashlight or kerosene lanterns. Because of shortages, dressings had to be reused. Dirty dressings were boiled over fires and then refolded. They performed all these tasks while slowly starving to death.

Because of limited food supplies, Bataan went on half-rations in the first week of the siege. Rations were later reduced another fifty percent. As their weight slowly faded, so did their energy. Yet the nurses plugged doggedly on. They were medical professionals, and the welfare of the men under their care was their primary concern.

As Allied forces retreated, Hospital No. 1 had to be packed up and relocated to Little Baguio closer to the tip of the peninsula, a miracle of logistics. All of the hundreds of patients survived. The Americans took everything not nailed down with them, even the electric wires from the buildings.

Hospital No. 2 was the first open-air hospital operated by the U.S. Army since the Civil War. In fact, one nurse likened it to the Atlanta train station scene in Gone With The Wind. Located near a small river, the space was simply hacked out of the jungle. The nurses set up beds brought from Corregidor out on the ground. Eventually, there were 18 wards of 200 beds each. When beds ran out, Filipino carpenters built bamboo bunks four tiers high. The ward nurses had to continually climb up and down ladders. At first, there were no mosquito nets, and malaria and dengue fever soon ravaged the patients and hospital staff. Dysentery, scurvy, and beriberi became common as food supplies dwindled. When hypodermic equipment ran short, the nurses reused syringes and re-sharpened needles on stones. The women had to bathe in the river. At least those at Hospital No. 1, located in an old Army motor pool complex, could take showers. During the siege, over 10,000 patients were treated at the two hospitals.

As the Allied forces continued to retreat, the specter of sexual assault hung over the women. They all knew of the Rape of Nanking in 1937 and about the raped and murdered nurses in Hong Kong. But the nurses really had little time to speculate. In her memoirs, one survivor said that they couldn’t worry about themselves. The care of their patients remained their primary concern. Their grateful wards soon dubbed the women “The Angels of Bataan.”

The nurses may have pushed rape to the backs of their minds, but Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright, the commander on Corregidor did not. As military collapse on Bataan became inevitable, he ordered all the American and Filipina nurses evacuated to Corregidor. After a harrowing road trip past exploding ammunition dumps and boat trips under fire, the women reached the relative safety of Corregidor. They continued to practice their profession there in crowded hospital tunnels dug into the rock. Continual artillery bombardment made their situation worse than Bataan.

A few of the nurses escaped. Two PBY Catalina flying boats evacuated twenty at night. One of the planes made it to Australia, but the other was damaged on Mindanao and its ten nurses captured. On the night before Corregidor surrendered, eleven Army nurses and Navy nurse Ann Bernatitus escaped on the submarine, Spearfish.

Fifty-six nurses went into captivity on Corregidor. Their commander, Captain Maude Davidson, maintained tight discipline and kept the women tending to their patients. The Japanese appeared stunned to encounter women prisoners who were military officers. Fortunately for the nurses, the new Japanese commander of the Corregidor hospital was a graduate of the University of California in Los Angeles. He ordered that the women be left alone to attend to their duties. Only one abortive rape attempt occurred.

After being imprisoned for a few months, the Corregidor nurses joined the nurses from Sternberg at the Santo Tomas University internment camp. Captain Davidson worked with civilian medical professionals to organized an infirmary and set up a nursing rotation to keep her charges focused on their profession. She insisted that they wear their khaki skirts while on duty. Lieutenant Laura Cobb followed suit with her Navy nurses. They carried on as the Japanese systematically starved the internees for the last year of captivity. A testament to their effectiveness is the fact that, except for complications from surgery, not a single military or civilian woman died at Santo Thomas. At the camp, the military nurses were known as “The Angels of Mercy.”

During the re-conquest of the Philippines in 1945, General MacArthur took great pains to assure that the military nurses were freed at the earliest possible moment, sending a flying column of tanks to liberate Santo Tomas.

The women came home to a grateful nation and military decorations. All were awarded the Bronze Star for heroism. Those injured received the Purple Heart. But like the rest of the “citizen soldiers” of the “Greatest Generation,” they went on with their lives and soon faded from the collective consciousness of the nation.

Before World War II, women were considered “the weaker sex” in Western society. The “Angels of Bataan and Corregidor” conclusively disproved that stereotype.

I chose to make one of the “Angels of Bataan” the heroine of my current writing project, Endure The Cruel Sun, the sequel to my bestselling novel Hold Back the Sun.  I tell about the last days of Bataan and Corregidor, along with the escape by submarine to Australia, through her eyes. Does romance await her “Down Under?”

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on September 15, 2015.  For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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When Australia Was Under Siege

In the spring of 1942, the people of Australia felt that they were under siege. They had every reason to believe so. In the opening months of the Pacific War, Australians had watched one Allied bastion after another fall to the forces of Japan’s Rising Sun. Hong Kong collapsed almost immediately. The key American islands of Wake and Guam quickly followed. But the earthquake than shook the defense of the entire region occurred when the British Army in Singapore, which included Australian troops, surrendered to a numerically inferior Japanese force. Conquest of the Dutch East Indies came quickly afterwards. Only in the Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur’s Filipino-American army on the Bataan Peninsula stubbornly held out, had the Japanese been held in check.

By this time, Australia had already come under direct attack. With the usual supply lines already cut, all Allied support to the Philippines and Dutch East Indies had to be funneled through the northern Australian port of Darwin. Japan’s planners took notice of Darwin’s importance. As Japanese forces prepared to wrap up their East Indies conquest, Tokyo sent Admiral Nagumo’s powerful carrier force, Kibu Butai, into the Indian Ocean to strike the British Royal Navy at Colombo, Ceylon, and block all lines of Allied retreat from Java. Sailing close to Australia, the six carriers launched a devastating air raid against Darwin, essentially destroying the town.  Savaging ships and aircraft in the area, the Japanese sailed on to pummel the Royal Navy near Ceylon and chase the remaining ships out into the Indian Ocean.

Many people in Australian coastal ports panicked. With Kibu Butai roaming the Indian Ocean at will, residents feared further air attacks or even bombardment by battleships. Many relocated as far inland as they could afford. Such fears were prevalent in the southwestern cities off Perth and its port, Freemantle.  These offered the only practical haven to the defeated Allied Naval forces trying to escape Java.

The situation to the north continued to deteriorate. Extending their East Indies conquest, the Japanese seized the Admiralty Islands and New Britain, with its magnificent harbor of Rabaul. Landings soon followed at Lae and Salamaua on the north coast of New Guinea.

In Mid-March, 1942, President Roosevelt ordered General MacArthur to break through the Japanese blockade and take command in Australia. When he reached Melbourne, he was appalled to discover that he had few forces at his disposal. Australia’s Army was in the Middle East fighting Rommel or in Japanese POW camps in Singapore. Australia was, in fact, very vulnerable to invasion. Continued air strikes against Darwin from the former Dutch East Indies and the appearance of enemy submarines off both the east and west coasts of Australia emphasized its vulnerability.

This is the situation into which I thrust my characters in my new novel, Endure the Cruel Sun (working title). Those who have read my second novel, Hold Back the Sun, will remember some of them at once. Dutch officers, Colonel Jan Dijker and Captain Garrit Laterveer, are prisoners of the Japanese. Unfortunately for the two officers, the Nazi Gestapo had asked that they be returned to Europe by submarine. Nurse Catherine van Zweden, Garrit’s fiancé, is in a civilian internment camp. What fate does the cruel Japanese Colonel Katsura Okuma have in store for her?

Dutch intelligence in Australia learns of the Gestapo’s request as a result of Allied codebreaking. They scramble to determine if there is any possibility of rescuing the former master spy and air ace.

Jack Sewell, promoted to Lieutenant Commander, now commands the old four-stack destroyer, Rust. With Japan marshaling for a full scale invasion of New Guinea, Allied naval commanders dragoon Rust into the Royal Australian Navy for the looming naval battle to seal Australia’s fate.

I plan to publish Endure the Cruel Sun early next fall. Those who have yet to read HoldBack the Sun may want to check it out before release of the new book.

On Amazon.com, Hold Back the Sun has 131 reviews with a 4.2 out of 5 stars overall rating. Forty-three percent of the reviews are five-star.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on Kindle on September 15, 2015, and a paperback version will be following.  For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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Return to the Southwest Pacific

After venturing into different genres and different decades, I am returning to my first writing subject—The Second World War. Although my muse deserted me for a few months, she is back in full force, churning out scenes of combat, self-sacrifice, espionage, and romance. The venue is once again the Southwest Pacific Theater in the crucial middle months of 1942.

When I published my bestselling novel, HOLD BACK THE SUN (HBTS), I left several pieces of unfinished business in Java and Australia. My principal Dutch characters were in the hands of the Japanese conquerors. Having lost almost their entire strike force in the battles around Java, Allied naval forces were in disarray. Only in the Philippines, where General MacArthur’s Filipino-American Army still held out stubbornly on the Bataan Peninsula, had Japan’s forces been held in check.

My next novel, ENDURE THE CRUEL SUN (working title), begins about the time that HBTS concluded. Java has just fallen. Japanese forces seize islands north of Australia from the Allies. Steadily advancing eastward, a string of Japanese island air bases threatens to cut the essential shipping lanes between Pearl Harbor and Australia and New Zealand.

Having lost their Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy responds with their last ace-in-the-hole: the four aircraft carriers of the Pacific Fleet.  Air strikes against Japan’s outlying island bases culminate with a raid on landings in progress in New Guinea. Heavily outnumbered in ships, the Americans have one tremendous advantage: Their newly-won ability to read JN25b, the principal Japanese naval code. The Coral Sea east of Australia becomes the pivotal battleground of the Pacific War. Jack Sewell, the destroyer officer from HBTS, is in the middle of the action.

Again, I am dealing with an international cast of characters. Besides Jack, Dutch officers Jan Dijker and Garrit Laterveer, are again in play. Nurse Christine van Zweden, Garrit’s fiancé, finds herself facing an impossible choice dictated by HBTS’s arch villain, Japanese Colonel Katsura Okuma. And across the globe in Germany, the Gestapo lusts to get its hands on Dijker, formerly the British Special Operations Executive’s key spy in Occupied Holland.

Jack Sewell’s new love interest is an American Navy nurse. Her adventures include being a surgical nurse in the jungle hospitals on Bataan, escaping to Corregidor just before Bataan surrenders, and then boarding a submarine to Australia on the night before Corregidor capitulates.

I’m about a third of the way through writing ENDURE THE CRUEL SUN. I hope to publish it sometime next fall.  Look for promotional posts near the end of summer.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on Kindle on September 15, 2015, and a paperback version will be following.  For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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