"Pacific Powerhouse"

In less than a year, the Fifth USAAF went from providing Japanese pilots with target practice and humorous material for Japanese radio broadcasters to an overwhelming and merciless adversary – proven beyond dispute during the Allied air action against the Japanese naval supply and troop convoy that sought to reinforce the Japanese Imperial Army garrison at Lae, New Guinea. On 2 – 4 March 1943, in the strategically important Battle of the Bismark Sea, the Fifth USAAF fielded heavy and medium bombers with fighter cover to attack the IJN convoy. As the last bombs fell from 7,000 feet, 13 Australian Bristol Beaufighters strafed at deck level and 12 B-25C Mitchells led a skip-bombing attack. One RAAF Beaufighter from the Thirteenth Squadron strafed the destroyer Arashio as the Third Attack Group’s Captain Robert Chatt, his B-25 Chatterbox, newly modified with eight .50-caliber machine guns in the nose, skipped a 500-pound bomb into the Arashio’s bridge fatally damaging the Japanese destroyer.