Free Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-33 by Hector C. Bywater

passed up the river, and heavily bombed the aerodrome at Dagupan. They were followed by Japanese cruisers and destroyers, which approached to within a few thousand yards of Lingayen, firing salvos of gas and high explosive shell into the American positions, and being fired at in return by field guns and howitzers. As dusk was almost at hand, it looked as though the enemy meant to make his landing under cover of darkness. At five o’clock aircraft sighted two lines of transports steaming up the bay behind a dense wall of smoke, put up by destroyers which preceded them. This was the moment for which the American airmen held in reserve had been impatiently waiting. Twenty of them were already soaring at 10,000 feet, and as many more left the ground as soon as the signal was given. A few minutes later, and all were driving straight for the Japanese transports through a terrific barrage of shell from the anti-aircraft guns of the warships. The enemy planes that tried to stay their headlong course were evaded as far as possible; for there was more urgent business in hand than duelling in mid-air. Once past the smoke screen the transports were in full view — twenty-four big ships, all crowded with men, slowly advancing up the bay in two columns line abreast. Planing down in wide spirals the American flyers discharged their bombs at a height of only a few thousand feet. This brought them within range of machine-gun and rifle fire, so that the air was alive with bullets. But nothing could stop men who had resolved to do the utmost harm to the enemy, cost what it might to themselves. Clear above the thud of anti-aircraft guns and the rattle of small-arms came the crash of detonating bombs.
    The largest transport in the first column was the N.Y.K. steamer Sado Mam , her decks brown with masses of khaki-clad troops. As the first plane crossed the line three 500-pounder demolition bombs plunged into this ship, and in an instant she was transformed into a floating shambles. Hundreds of men were blown to fragments, as many more lay in ghastly heaps, maimed and shattered by the explosions, while a pillar of dense smoke rising amidships told of a fire caused by one of the bombs which had burst below deck in a compartment filled with inflammable stores. Of the ten other transports in which bombs took effect, all suffered terrible casualties. The Wakasa Maru was so badly holed that she foundered in a few minutes, with the loss of half her complement of 2,200 soldiers. In another ship, the Tsubari Maru , phosphorus bombs set fire to large petrol tanks in the hold, flames from which speedily enveloped the hull from end to end, driving all the men overboard. Besides the casualties to personnel , much damage was inflicted on the equipment, boats, and other landing gear which lay on the decks of the transports. It was afterwards claimed by the aviators who carried out this first attack that if a hundred machines had been available, instead of only forty, the Japanese transport fleet would have been practically wiped out and the landing frustrated; nor, in view of the extensive havoc they caused, could this claim be disputed. Even as it was, the enemy had lost more than 6,000 men killed and wounded or drowned; much of his equipment was destroyed, and so many boats and barges were smashed that the process of getting the troops ashore was delayed for several hours.
    But the American airmen had shot their bolt. Considering the low altitude from which they had attacked and the intensity of the fire brought to bear against them, it was a miracle that any one of the forty machines returned. Twenty-five of them were brought down, seven more were so badly damaged that they crashed on landing, and only eight got back to the aerodrome in a fit state to ascend again. But though a shrewd blow had been delivered at the enemy, his advance was not arrested. Still screened from the view of the defenders ashore, the transports moved steadily in behind a rolling