Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

A Superfort specially configured for long-distance photo reconnaissance flights, designated the F-13, arrived on October 30. By a stroke of luck, the following day dawned with unusually clear skies over Tokyo and its environs. Captain Ralph D. Steakley proposed to fly a photographic mission right away, hoping to capitalize on the rare favorable weather, and Hansell agreed. The lone F-13, sardonically named the Tokyo Rose, soared over the Japanese capital at 32,000 feet, its four cameras snapping continuously. Steakley circled in lazy figure-eight patterns around Tokyo, Tokyo Bay, Yokohama, then west over Mt. Fuji to the Tōkai region and the industrial heartland of greater Nagoya. This was the first Allied airplane to penetrate Tokyo airspace since the Doolittle Raid, two-and-a-half years earlier. Japanese army fighters scrambled to intercept, but to the air defense command’s toe-curling mortification, they were unable to catch the fast, high-flying intruder. Above 30,000 feet, the Nakajima KI-44 fighters (Allied codename “Tojo”) could climb only with a significant loss of ground speed, allowing the Tokyo Rose to sail away, serene and untouchable. Antiaircraft batteries put on a dazzling fireworks show, but the bursts were low and wild. After a fourteen-hour flight in freakishly clear weather, the F-13 touched down on Saipan with thousands of aerial negatives covering major industrial and aviation plants in the Tokyo and Nagoya regions.