We Shot
Down the First Japs
Two U.S. Gunners from New Mexico
Meet Attack on Philippine Field
The first Japanese attack on the Philippines occurred Dec.
8, when two squadrons of pursuit bombers attacked Clark
Field. This is the story of two sergeants in the
anti-aircraft battery defending that field. Both come from
Carlsbad, N. Mex., where they trained in a National Guard
unit which now has 83 members in the Philippines. Sergeant
Joseph Stanley Smith is 21, married and has a
four-months-old son. Sergeant Paul ‘Doc’ Womack, 22 and
unmarried, used to be a rancher.
Life Magazine
21 DEC 1941
Mobile anti-aircraft gun,
possibly like the one manned by Sergeants Smith
(top) and Womack (bottom). |
by Sergeant Joe Smith
We’d just finished lunch at the gun battery and I was
brushing my teeth when one of the fellows called over: “Hey,
it’s just 12 o’clock. Let’s listen to the news.” We had been
alert all night and just after breakfast we were at our
positions. I had radio earphones on when the news flash came
that Oahu had been bombed at the same time Secretary Hull
received the note from Kurusu. I told the fellows and we all
said, “Well, it’s here. This is what we came over for.”
Somebody said: “Okay, let’s get it over with and then maybe
we can go home.” We were still fixing gun positions and
started digging foxholes near the gun. We figured that since
Honolulu was attacked, we’d probably get it soon.
I had the radio on all the time and at about 11:30 heard the
report that Clark Field had been bombed. Well, we were right
in the middle of Clark Field, so we just laughed. Then we
thought it might have been fifth column or
something—couldn’t figure it out. We were sort of suspecting
we’d get action within four or five hours and we were just
sitting around shooting the breeze. Our chow service came
and we finished lunch and that was when one fellow said,
“Let’s listen to the 12’oclock news.”
“Look at the pretty planes”
Just then somebody from the next battery yelled, “Hey, look
at the pretty planes,” so we walked out a little ways and
saw them. They were about 20,000 ft. high, in perfect
formation. There were two waves: nine, nine, eight, and then
nine, nine, eight in the second wave I counted. We thought
they were our Navy planes. They looked nice. They were
directly overhead when I looked through glasses and saw they
were a different type from the Navy’s. It looked like they
were four-motored, but I didn’t have time to think about
it—just then there was the darndest noise. It sounded like
the darndest thing I ever heard and gave me the darndest
feeling. Those bombers just came over once and dropped their
stuff in a straight line across our field. Our mess truck
which had just left us, cutting straight across the field,
got a direct hit. Smoke and dust just went up like a
fountain. We found later that both drivers were killed.
Those were the only casualties from our outfit. It all
happened so quickly that for a minute it seemed like a death
trap.
We could see the dust spurt up from the bombs as they got
closer and each time the noise was louder. It looked like
they would cut a path right across us, but they stopped
about 200 yd. short of our positions. After the last bomb it
seemed kind of quiet and everything was all dirty from the
explosions.
We stood up and had a kind of relaxation period for a
minute. We all said: “I never knew what war would be like. I
guess this is it—let’s get busy.” We started loading guns.
We had never fired at a live target before and felt kind of
funny as we talked over concussions and how we felt. We
wished we could fire a couple of rounds to get over that
tense feeling, but we held our fire until all of a sudden
pursuits started coming in over us. I just yelled to the
fellows to stay low, keep calm and keep firing. All I could
think of was to take dead aim. Those pursuits kept diving
right over us. They had come in from every direction at once
in a sort of crisscross formation. They did a beautiful job,
but once we started firing we felt fine. They got very close
before they felt our fire. At first we all just aimed at any
plane we saw. Then we calmed down and every gun would pick
on the same plane at once.
In the middle of it our lieutenant came running up. He’d
been at lunch and came across in a jeep car the minute the
bombing started. They machine-gunned him in the jeep but he
didn’t care. He just ran up to me and said, “Let’s give ‘em
hell,” and grabbed the machine gun.
I could follow the enemy’s tactics clearly. As each plane
approached he’d come in on the slant and then get over us
and start diving, and then wed all let go at the same time
with machine-gun and rifle fire and he’d be afraid to come
into our fire, especially into the 37-mm. They came so close
we could have reached up and slapped them. I saw the pilots
clearly but couldn’t tell what they looked like because they
had goggles and helmets on. I never had any harsh feelings
toward Japanese before, but I learned to hate them right
then. They’re good sports, though; when one we hit was
falling, we saw his buddy dive down alongside and waggle the
tail. Behind us we saw a dogfight too and that proved to us,
right then and there, that our P-40s are better than
anything they’ve got. Some of the boys thought it was a
Messerschmitt in the dogfight, but the P-40 outflew and
outmaneuvered him all around. Soon our plane got up behind
and must have hit the fuel tank because the other caught
fire and just seemed to stop there in the air a minute, then
fell down in a long streak. We saw three more of their
pursuits crash, and two more we think we got but the smoke
was too thick to be sure. They had the jump on us first but
we stuck to it till we chased them off, and that made us
feel good.
None of us was really excited after the first minutes when
the bombers caught us. We were too busy—and it felt good to
be firing. When one would come down wed just let him have it
till he couldn’t take any more, and when he pulled out wed
give him a hand wave at our noses. We just said, “get those
bastards out of the air,” and we kept at it till we knew wed
run them off. The whole raid lasted just 53 minutes. Then we
saw the last trail off through the smoke, and I looked
around to see if all the fellows were okay.
We stood up and looked at each other. We were all covered
with mud from sweating and lying in the dirt. We looked
funny, I guess. After it was all over we had a laugh—they
couldn’t complete their dives and we knew wed stood up to
them. They had us scared for a minute at first, but we felt
good when we got started and wed like to see them try again.
We have a score to settle and were waiting now.
by Sergeant Paul Womack
I was in charge of one of the guns at Clark and at noon
Monday I was writing a letter to my mother. All I got down
was, “Dear Mom,” and, Christ, it happened. I put the letter
in my pocket (I’ve still got it) and jumped up to the gun.
Bombers were right over us and the dirt from the bombs was
kicking over our heads in middle field. The dirt was so
thick I couldn’t see, but it looked like a bomb had hit our
second platoon. It made us so damn mad that when we started
firing, the bombers just went over once. Our fighters had
taken off earlier and I think they came back to chase those
bombers. We just got in position when pursuits started
coming over us. It was right at the start and I was down on
my knees behind the sandbagging at the gun when I got hit.
I’m the luckiest fellow in the U.S. Army—if Id been six
inches further over, Id have got it. It felt like a red-hot
wire going right under my arm and past the forearm. I looked
down and saw some blood and it felt hot a minute. But I
didn’t have time to think about it, just wiped the blood off
and kept firing. It didn’t hurt much. We knew the only way
they could shoot was to come right at us, so wed wait till
they got directly over and then wed let them have it. The
first plane we got we hit smack in the motor and she just
flared up and dropped. We were laughing and hollering. We
were tickled to death and after that we felt good. We felt
like fighting. What I kept thinking was the wonderful way
the fellows were taking it. We were just a bunch of little
kids out there when we started. We didn’t know what it would
be like. We had no officers—our second lieutenant was still
at lunch—we sergeants were the only ones there. Just at
first the men were surprised but when it started they cooled
right down and did a swell job. It was remarkable. It really
showed our fighting spirit and all through it I kept feeling
proud. Our motto is, “First, in spite of hell,” and we sure
lived up to it. We didn’t lose anybody and they did, and we
know now just what we can do to them. I’m just hoping for
them to come back. We know now we’ve got what they cant
take. |