Better to be lucky than good

Flight Journal, Aug 2003 by Cleaver, Thomas McKelvey

A P-35A pilot in the first WW II Western Pacific combat

PACIFIC ISLANDS, CHRISTMAS EVE, 1941. For the Americans reeling from the Japanese attack on December 8, there wasn't much holiday cheer. The sky was overcast, and it was raining in Lamon Bay as Japanese troops clambered into the invasion barges. Their wakes pointed the way to shore. Just to the north, the weather forced two obsolete American P-35As to descend. "I was at about 900 feet when we came over the hills, and there was the Japanese fleet in the bay," recalled 2nd Lt. Richard Lamar Gillett. "I started counting the transports. I had gotten up to about 50 when two destroyers spotted us and opened fire."

Gillett wasn't aware that Petty Officer Toshio Kikuchi of the Tainan Air Group was above him. He was part of the invasion air cover and was equally befuddled by the weather. When Kikuchi saw the ships open fire, he dived to investigate.

Gillett recalls, "I was trying to evade the antiaircraft fire, when all of a sudden a Zero popped out of the overcast, practically right beside me. I don't think he ever saw me because he turned away just as soon as he appeared. I turned to my right and was immediately on his tail. I opened fire and realized that the tracers from my wing guns were converging ahead of him. I couldn't throttle back to open up the distance between us, but then he just dived and headed for the ocean. In my pursuit, I realized my nose guns were tearing him up behind the cockpit. They tell you not to get target fixation, but I stuck right behind him, firing all the way until he crashed into the ocean, on fire all over. Looking back, I think I probably killed him with the first burst, but I was too green to know that."

After turning to pursue the Zero, Gillett was now separated from his wingman. As he recalls, "I pulled out, and I was right over an invasion barge with a tank in it, and the Japanese were jumping over the sides into the water. Just past it, there were other ships, and I fired at them. I turned, strafed another ship, then came back over the barge with the tank and shot at it; it rolled over and sank. Just at that moment, I ran out of ammo because I'd wasted so much shooting at the Zero. I pulled up, saw four Zeros headed toward me, and climbed into the overcast."

"It's better to be lucky than good," says Gillett, the only P-35 pilot in WW II to shoot down a Japanese Zero. "I was lucky that I was behind the Zero instead of in front of him. I was lucky when I landed back at Clark Field that the guys who were shooting at me didn't give enough lead. I was lucky that my C.O. on Bataan Field sent me to Corregidor to get the chewing-out he was in for and wasn't there for the shelling that killed him." As a survivor of the "Bataan death march" and three years of Japanese captivity, two years of it spent as a slave on Japanese home islands, Gillett is a lucky man indeed.

The Philippines were armed almost too late. As the Battle of Britain raged, the 24th Pursuit Group at Clark Field was still flying the Boeing P-26 and had only just received 12 obsolete Seversky P-35s sent on from the 1st Pursuit Group following its reequipment with the first P-38s in the United States.

The 17th Pursuit Squadron was sent to the Philippines in late November 1940. However, on its arrival, no aircraft were available. The Air Corps remedied this by sending 45 P-35As in February 1941. The P-35A began life as the EP-1-106, an export version of the original P-35 ordered by the Swedish Air Force. Sixty out of a total of 120 P-35As were delivered to the Swedish Air Force in early 1940; before delivery, the U.S. seized the remaining 60 to bolster the small number of "modern" fighters available.

Powered by a 1,050hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp motor, the P-35A had 100 more horses than the P-35, giving it a speed of 310mph. With two .30-caliber machine guns in the nose and a .50-caliber weapon in each wing, it was marginally better armed than its predecessor. Unfortunately, they arrived with their instruments and placards in Swedish, making them difficult to fly and maintain.

Gillett had graduated from Imperial College outside El Centro, California, in July 1940, and volunteered for the Air Corps that fall. "I was in the first class to graduate from Stockton, California, in April 1941. We actually did most of our training at Mather Field outside Sacramento, as they were still constructing the field at Stockton." Second Lt. Gillett arrived in Luzon in the Philippines in May 1941, assigned to the 17th PS. "The squadron was at gunnery camp in northern Luzon while Nichols Field was being completed; the field had P-35As and a few P-26s. As a junior pilot, I got to fly what was available, which meant I put in quite a bit of time in the P-26. Of all the planes I flew in the Air Force for more than 25 years, the P-26 was my favorite."

Although most in the 17th cursed the P-35As, Gillett was happy to fly them whenever the schedule allowed. "I became quite proficient in that airplane, which-as it turned out-was fortunate." When P-40s arrived in September 1941, the 17th was happy to hand down the Severskys to the 20th and 34th Pursuit Squadrons, who together with the 17th formed the 4th Composite Group. Several P-35As remained with the 17th Squadron; although Gillett did fly the P-40s, he continued to build time and experience in the P-35As.