The American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews The Museum of Flight Seattle, Washington

Robert M. DeHaven (Part 2 of 5)

Interviewed by: Eugene A. Valencia

Interview Date: circa 1960s 2

Abstract: In this five-part oral history, fighter ace Robert M. DeHaven is interviewed about his military service with the United States Army Air Forces. In part two, DeHaven continues to describe his experiences as a fighter pilot, including his time in the South Pacific with the of the 49th Fighter Group during World War II. Topics discussed include DeHaven’s involvement in the Wewak raids in 1943, his other combat missions in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, and his respect for fellow pilots and combat leaders. He also shares his thoughts on the developments of manned and unmanned weapon systems.

The interview is conducted by fellow fighter ace Eugene A. Valencia.

Biography:

Robert M. DeHaven was born on January 13, 1922 in San Diego, California. He joined the United States Army Air Forces in 1942 and graduated from flight training the following year. DeHaven served with the 7th Fighter Squadron of the 49th Fighter Group during World War II, flying missions in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. He later became Group Operations Officer of the 49th Fighter Group. DeHaven remained in the military after the war, representing the Air National Guard as their acceptance test pilot for the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star. He transferred to the Air Force Reserve in 1950 and retired as a colonel in 1965. In his civilian life, he worked for the Hughes Aircraft Company as a test pilot and executive and as the personal pilot for Howard Hughes. He also served as president of the American Fighter Aces Association. DeHaven passed away in 2008.

Biographical information courtesy of: Boyce, Ward J., ed., American fighter aces album. Mesa, Ariz: American Fighter Aces Association, 1996.

Restrictions:

Permission to publish material from the American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews must be obtained from The Museum of Flight Archives.

Transcript:

Transcribed by Pioneer Transcription Services

3

Index:

Wewak raid (October 1943) ...... 4

Cross-branch teamwork in the Pacific Theater ...... 6

Aerial victory during a scramble...... 7

Comparing the European and Pacific Theaters ...... 8

Top fighter aces and combat leaders ...... 9

Weapon system developments ...... 10

Experiences of old and new fighter pilots ...... 11

4

Robert M. DeHaven (Part 2 of 5) [START OF INTERVIEW]

00:00:00

[Wewak raid (October 1943)]

EUGENE A. VALENCIA: Bob, you mentioned the Wewak melee. That certainly sounded like one that will be remembered. Do you recall any of the incidents at the big air show?

ROBERT M. DEHAVEN: Well, yeah. This was—yeah. It was the 26th of October in '43. Wewak was the focal point. It was actually the pivotal point of the air defense, or air forces, of the Japanese in that theater. And I use this term exclusive of Guadalcanal, who of course got their beatings out of Rabaul. Rabaul was actually the axis of the Japanese fighter forces in the South Pacific. As far as the island in New Guinea was concerned, the counterpart of Rabaul was Wewak, and there were three tremendous dromes there. And this was a—the major strike in October to knock out these three dromes, or at least decimate them to the extent where they were no longer truly effective. The P-38 aircraft, which were the only ones able to reach this area at the time, simply were not equipped in the sense of quantity. That is the number of aircraft available to do a proper fighter cover job for the number of bombers required to compromise these three bases, which incidentally were contiguous. They were right along the coast there.

00:01:24

RMD: So Fighter Command came up with this brilliant idea of staging the P-40s—about, as I recall, four or five squadrons of us—out of a little place called Benabena, which was just a mud strip cut out of the side of a mountain about halfway up New Guinea—Aussie New Guinea, probably, in contrast to Dutch New Guinea. And we staged out of there at our field flown in by C-47s, 50-gallon drums. We topped off there and then rendezvoused with the bombers en route. And apparently, the Japanese radar, crude as it was, picked up the flights coming in. And to the best of our knowledge, they simply scrambled everything that would fly in the area.

And I have forgotten now exactly how many we had. It seems to me that we actually got over the target somewhere between 40 and 50 machines, in addition to the bombers. And we were assigned a medium or close cover, which would happen to be my responsibility with the 7th Squadron. And the P-38s were flying high cover. These were all B-24s. When we went into the target area, the plan was to go parallel to the coast, make a 180, and make the bombing run down the coast headed for home.

00:02:43 5

RMD: When we got in the vicinity of the target going up the coast out at sea, there were three tremendous clouds of Japanese fighters. We actually counted in excess of 30 airplanes in each gaggle. And they were strictly on our path and preparing to cut us off, so the lead bombardier or the lead—or the commander of the lead airplane elected to make a 90-degree turn into the coast over the target and bomb perpendicular to the line of airstrips, rather than in parallel to them. Well, this was fine. This didn't cause any trouble, except that we didn't anticipate that the Japanese would hit us at this point. We thought they'd wait until we got turned and then present a line abreast with their sweep troop. And as soon as he made his turn, started his turn—this was a pretty aggressive bunch—and they came charging through.

And I remember the first flight when there were six airplanes, two Vs of three, made a high overside over—had side approach to the lead three bombers, and they never got within gun range. They just went down, fired ineffectually, and peeled off. Then the rest of them started coming down. And at this point, I made my pass into them and scared off the first bunch, and my wingman made a mistake of following one down. And when I pulled up over the top to reset myself over the bombers with the squadron, as I looked down, I saw him streaking out some 5,000 or 6,000 feet below me and he had two Zeros sitting on his tail. So I called my wingman, the element leader, and told him to hold the flight together and I went down after this kid trying to get him out of it. And before I got there, they nailed him and he caught fire and rolled over and went in the water. I couldn't get both of them, but the guy that shot him down, I got him.

00:04:39

EAV: [unintelligible 00:04:39]

RMD: And it was the only wingman I lost. Well, the upshot of this whole fight, the—I think there were some 21 or 22 airplanes shot down that day. We lost six bombers, which doesn't sound like very many by European standards, but percentage-wise it was one of the largest losses in World War II, to lose 10% of the bombing force on one raid.

EAV: So the Japs got them?

RMD: Yeah.

EAV: They must have been an aggressive group.

RMD: They were very aggressive. This was, in effect, the last gasp. It's my firm belief—and there are some historians who have referred to it in this manner—that that particular fight that day broke the back of the fighter—effective fighter complement in New Guinea on that day. Besides the obvious losses they sustained, since they were fighting right over their front yard, there must have been an equal number of airplanes damaged beyond repair. Some that were recovered and crash landed. And this is typical of combat. If you're over your own front yard, 6

you can struggle an airplane back in, but it's totally useless. So I imagine their losses were very sizable at that time. We do know from the Intelligence reports at the time, they pulled quite a number of them back up into Hollandia. And of course, in the island-hopping process—which we followed the grand design of General MacArthur—the next strike, of course, above Wewak was Hollandia. This is where we moved into next.

00:06:09

[Cross-branch teamwork in the Pacific Theater]

EAV: Bob, you mentioned something a few minutes ago that Joe Foss brought to light a few months back, was that in many of these melees he was happy to join up on a P-40 or a P-38 or a P-39. He had no preference out of that area at all.

RMD: Well, as a matter of fact, this was particularly true in the disorganized early days of the Philippine campaign. We were the fighter units into Leyte—Tacloban, as it was called. We arrived there, oh, it was a matter of two or three days after the initial landings. They were hardly prepared for us. And it was a matter of scrambling every time the three shots went off or the siren went off, and you got in the air as best you can. As a matter of fact, I arrived there about eleven o’clock in the morning. At two o’clock that afternoon, we were under bombing alert conditions when we got the scramble gong. And my wingman and I took off and started south from the island, and we were instantly taking our vectoring from a Navy controller—a Navy destroyer. I'll never forget him, bless his heart. He was sure kind. He was Pensacola Base. Delightful boy and very good.

00:07:30

RMD: At any rate, the first mission out, I was going along—we were over a scattered overcast and going around the side of a cue buildup and here come—a line abreast, six airplanes, all radial engines. And you couldn't identify them. And I was above them, so I was getting set to play dumb and go over the top and then make a pass coming in from behind, thinking they were Zeros. And when I went over the top, I noticed there were four Hellcats, and riding outrigger and slightly below and behind them on either wing were two Zeros.

EAV: Is that right?

RMD: And the Hellcats were totally unaware they were there. So I peeled off and I hit one and he went down through the overcast. This was the kind of thing that—well, the overcast went right on the hill. You couldn't confirm it. And he didn't blow up, but I know he didn't fall out. So those—you know, you forget those. But we joined up with the four Hellcats, and we finally—by virtue of single numbers on the old VHF radio, we finally got together and we ran the patrol together. But this was typical. You picked up anybody you could find. 7

EAV: Yeah.

RMD: Whether they were Corsairs or Hellcats or—you didn't even care as long as they were friendly. As I say—

[Aerial victory during a scramble]

EAV: How about that other incident about being [unintelligible 00:08:39] during one of the scrambles?

RMD: Oh, this was in November, as I recall. Anyway, we'd—we were taking a terrible pasting up there. And as a matter of fact, we were so badly bombed out and the roads were so muddy we were taking an LCI across the bay in order to get to the landing strip. And of course, churning up a phosphorescent wake in the water every time the enemy came by, which was about every three or four minutes. They were saturating us pretty well.

00:09:07

RMD: We’d have to stop dead in the water. It took us something like two hours to make a trip that normally took about 15 minutes. By the time we got over the strip, it was about nine o’clock and the sun was up. And there was a lull, and my airplane was sitting right alongside the—right alongside the alert tent, which was just a 16 perimetel sitting there. And all of a sudden, the three shots went off again and the gongs and the sirens and the whole works. And I started running for my airplane, and I jumped in the cockpit. And as I pull the canopy down, the first one started down the strip towards me. I saw him, and he dropped a couple of bombs. They were small, probably 150-kg bombs. And one went right in the runway about—oh, I would say a couple of thousand feet down the runway from me—and dug a big hole in the Marston matting. So I'm sitting there trying to prime this dude, you know, and get the engine started.

So I finally got both mills going and just cracked them wide open. I was drawing something like 52 inches, which is all they would take. I went charging down—I’d forgotten to put my parachute on, I had no Mae West, I had no helmet. I always flew in a baseball cap anyway. I didn't have the earphones on. Nothing. Which was pretty useless because we didn't have a tower. Any rate, got going down, here comes another one. And it occurred to me I wasn't going to get over this pit in the runway. And all of a sudden, I got a tremendous wallop in the seat of the pants and I was airborne. And it so happened he dropped one behind me that literally blew me off the field.

EAV: I'll be darned.

00:10:28 8

RMD: So I streaked out over the water, trying to take advantage of the Navy, which was sitting in the bay. And of course, every time I went by a ship they'd shoot at me, but I was going fast enough— [laughs] By the time they'd get range, they'd finally recognize this thing had two booms, you see. I went over the bay and gained altitude and came back. And these three jokers that had started this little roundelay on the strip there, the last one was just making his pass. And I had a little altitude on him, and as he pulled up and started back in, I tacked on behind him. And he never saw me. And I hit him. This was really a really surprising thing. I expended exactly seven rounds of ammunition. It was just a burst. And boy, he was out of that airplane like a shot and parachuted down over the little town of Jaro that had been taken by the infantry that morning. And so I stooged around for a little while, and it was clear so I went back in and landed. And of course, these things happen in combat. It wasn't until after I landed, and purely a matter of habit to unstrap yourself, that I decided I had never—I had found out that I had never had my parachute strapped on. It never occurred to me in flight.

EAV: Bob, what—you did command your last squadron?

RMD: I can't say that in honesty. I was the acting commander of it because the commander— whose name was Eddie Peck and a very good friend of mine—was down with jaundice on the Leyte move, and so I moved into command to take the squadron up there. And I left it at that point.

00:11:52

[Comparing the European and Pacific Theaters]

EAV: Say, Bob, there appeared in a book about Claire Lee Chennault, The Way of a Fighter, a very good example. The British sent one squadron of crack Spitfires to Australia. Did you know this?

RMD: I knew there was a squadron down there. They were operating out of Darwin, as I recall.

EAV: They were the pack who were fighting with the Yellow Nose Boys out of Abbeville. And in a very short time, they were all shot down with a Zero. So the people would rather ignore the Pacific War as child's play—I thought this was a very good example. This is documented.

RMD: I think this is significant in the one respect, certainly. And that is that here again, the two theaters were a comparison of apples and oranges. If you attempted to apply European fighter tactics in the Pacific, it was like playing Russian roulette. By the same token, if you tried to apply Pacific fighter tactics in the European Theater, you would have been in just as poor a shape. If this is a matter of record that this particular squadron was lost in the Pacific, and the inference here is that they didn't know what they were doing, my immediate reaction is that they didn't learn very fast. 9

EAV: This is what General Chennault implied.

00:13:13

RMD: All right. Fortunately—well, this may have been one of those cases where they had a lot to unlearn before they started to learn. To those of us that went into the Pacific as green neophytes to the fighter business, we had predecessors who were pretty familiar with what was going on. And by and large, they coached us pretty well. But once again, the two theaters—I used to get a little annoyed when I heard them talk about Europe as being the big leagues. And—

EAV: Yes.

RMD: When you're getting shot at, there's no such thing as a big league or the little league. That's all I was saying.

EAV: Bob, I'm glad you brought this up. I know many of our people will be happy.

RMD: Oh, I've got some very close friends still that fought in both theaters, and they can give you a pretty objective view of both. And I think they would say substantially the same thing.

EAV: Let's say we all earned our flight pay.

RMD: I dare say we did.

[Top fighter aces and combat leaders]

EAV: I want to ask a big question. And it's a hard question. Very difficult question. But who would you consider the top aces and why?

00:14:21

RMD: Well, I'm understandably prejudiced. I wouldn't say prejudiced, but biased in this respect, because I have no personal nor intimate knowledge of the—or I should say, observation of the competency, other than their records, of the people who operated in the European Theater. All I know is what I read about them. I know Frank—Francis Gabreski very well. Gabby and I are very old friends, and I have a great deal of respect for his ability. I would certainly classify him in the group of the better combat pilots I've known, despite the fact I've never flown with him.

Obviously, in the case of Dick Bong, who was a very good friend of mine; Tommy McGuire, who I went overseas with; Jerry Johnson; George Laven, I flew with for quite some time and a very aggressive and a very fine combat leader. There were others, surprisingly, that I consider to be great combat leaders that were not aces. 10

EAV: This is true.

RMD: My first—excuse me, my second squadron commander. My first squadron commander, George Manning, I thought—who, incidentally, is still on active duty. I thought George was just an excellent leader. My second squadron commander, a tall lanky Armenian by the name of Ray Melikian who I thought was one of the finest combat leaders that ever lived. This guy had eyes like an owl. In fact, the first—my first victory was in a flight with Ray, and I was riding his wing. And I thought I had pretty good eyes, and this guy picked out two aircraft, called them out by clock position and relative altitude to us, and we kept on going toward them. It was a full ten minutes before I saw them, and they were just specks in the sky when I saw them.

00:16:09

EAV: I'll be darned.

RMD: But he was just good. Another one is “Hap” Chandler [Alfred “Hap” Chandler], Colonel Chandler, who is still on active duty. Hap never got his shot. Not one. And yet I consider him one of the great combat leaders. He instilled confidence. The kids would come back and shake their heads. The things this guy can do in the air. And just the sense of strategy and tactics. But as is the case with many people who shot down airplanes, it's a question of simply being in the right place at the right time.

EAV: Certainly agree.

RMD: And Hap just never had the stroke of luck. But he was still one of the better combat pilots I ever flew with.

[Weapon system developments]

EAV: That certainly is. What do you think of the life of the manned interceptor? Your idea.

RMD: [laughs] That's a pretty loaded question. I have some fairly firm ideas on this. I know I believe that the manned interceptor is obsolete. There is a reasonable mix of manned and unmanned weaponry in the inventory of any country who maintains a force—that is considered a force. We have, from time to time, gone overboard in our emphasis.

00:17:22

RMD: Unfortunately, I feel in some cases to the detriment of the complimentary weapon systems. For instance, we had not too many years ago a tremendous reliance on the manned interceptor, and the missile system suffered. Here in very recent years, we have swung the 11

pendulum to where the emphasis has gone to the unmanned weaponry field, and obviously the manned concept has suffered.

I think we're coming out of this. We are finally recognizing that in the instance of the so-called— and I use this term guardedly—brushfire wars, sophisticated unmanned—lacking the intelligence of man, decision-making intelligence of man—the unmanned weapon is simply no good. You've got to have the human being in the loop to do the job in Vietnam and in Laos and some of these other smaller areas. And so this in itself defines the fact that you must have some reasonable balanced mix of weaponry. In this sense then, my answer to your specific question would be that there is not only now, but as far as I can see in the future, a requirement and a very decided one for manned aircraft. Call them what you wish: fighters, interceptors, interdiction weapons, air superiority weapons—use your own term. But I think they are here to stay, and there is a usefulness for them for a long, long time to come.

[Experiences of old and new fighter pilots]

EAV: Well, Bob, there's probably no one anymore competent that I've asked this question to. But don't you feel that—of course, with your weapon systems, as one of the developers, one of the leaders in the field—I feel a little sorry for the new pilots coming up. Where it's a question of not even seeing your adversary and shooting them down. Locking on miles back and as farther— as your new weapons become more effective, farther back until eventually they'll be on the ground ten or 15 years hence. But do you feel that the new pilots will miss a lot of this romance and fun of aerial dogfighting? Combat?

00:19:49

RMD: Well, of course, speaking from my own experience like yours, this is—I would have to answer yes. But I would like to make the observation that this is all purely relative. Fighter pilots, whether they recognized it or not, in the traditional sense of the word, in this case World War II, World War I, and Korea, they were professionals. They were specialists. There was a certain amount of camaraderie, of esprit de corps that was unique to this group of people, to these peculiar talents and aggressiveness and imagination that formed a professionalism which we will never see again. However, by the same token, the specialists today are also professionals in a degree that we never knew as fighter pilots. I don't know whether I make myself clear on this respect or not.

EAV: [overlapping] Yes, you do.

RMD: Being familiar with a highly complex world of electronics and electronics weapons systems and guided missiles, for instance, there is a comparable—not an identical, but a 12

comparable esprit de corps and camaraderie and confidence between air crews, a certain uniqueness of these people who are able to do this highly professional, highly skilled job that by in turn we didn't know as ordinary fighter pilots. So there are certain elements that have not been lost but will never be realized again. By the same token, those of us that had it will never know what they've got, you see.

00:21:25

[END OF INTERVIEW]