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On November 2, 1943, during World War II, Major Raymond Wilkins led a daring low-level strike against the heavily fortified Japanese base at Rabaul. Flying a B-25 Mitchell already torn apart by anti-aircraft fire, he made a split-second decision that would define his legacy in WW II.
Instead of escaping with the rest of his squadron, Wilkins turned his damaged bomber back toward a Japanese cruiser, deliberately drawing enemy fire away from five withdrawing aircraft. Rabaul was one of the most heavily defended strongholds in the South Pacific, protected by dense anti-aircraft batteries and experienced fighter pilots. In those critical moments, his maneuver shielded fellow crews and protected Allied forces supporting the Marines on Bougainville.
Wilkins did not survive the mission, but the men he saved lived on for decades. Awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in World War II, his story stands as a powerful example of courage under fire. This episode explores how one battered B-25, and one pilot’s decision, changed the course of a battle in WW II.
Instead of escaping with the rest of his squadron, Wilkins turned his damaged bomber back toward a Japanese cruiser, deliberately drawing enemy fire away from five withdrawing aircraft. Rabaul was one of the most heavily defended strongholds in the South Pacific, protected by dense anti-aircraft batteries and experienced fighter pilots. In those critical moments, his maneuver shielded fellow crews and protected Allied forces supporting the Marines on Bougainville.
Wilkins did not survive the mission, but the men he saved lived on for decades. Awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in World War II, his story stands as a powerful example of courage under fire. This episode explores how one battered B-25, and one pilot’s decision, changed the course of a battle in WW II.
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LearningTranscript
00:00Salt spray hammered the windscreen. Major Raymond Wilkins held the B-25 at barely 50 feet above the water, so
00:07low that the propellers clawed at their own reflection in Simpson Harbor. The engines roared at full throttle. Eight American
00:15bombers were flying straight into the most heavily defended Japanese base in the Pacific.
00:19Ahead, the harbor was crowded with steel, cruisers, destroyers, transports, and then the first shell burst. A black bloom of
00:28flak erupted 200 yards in front of him. A second followed. Then a third.
00:34Within seconds, the sky filled with explosions, jagged and violent, as 367 anti-aircraft guns opened fire. Tracers stitched the
00:44air. Red lines ripped across the water's surface. The entire shoreline seemed to ignite at once. Wilkins did not climb.
00:52He pushed the nose down even further. Seventy feet. Salt spray streaked across the cockpit glass. The smell of hot
01:01oil and cordite bled into the cabin. Behind him, seven B-25s held tight formation, trusting him to lead them
01:08through the storm.
01:10Somewhere above the clouds, Japanese fighters were already climbing. He could not see them yet. But he knew they were
01:16coming.
01:17Five hundred yards ahead, a Japanese destroyer was turning broadside, its deck guns lowering toward him. Wilkins slid his thumb
01:25onto the trigger.
01:26In less than a minute, he would have to choose between saving himself or drawing every gun in this harbor
01:31onto his own aircraft.
01:33At five hundred yards.
01:36He opened fire.
01:38Raymond Harrell Wilkins was 26 years old. This was his 87th combat mission. By November of 1943, that number alone
01:47set him apart.
01:48Most bomber crews in the Southwest Pacific did not survive 20. Many did not survive 10.
01:54The air war over New Guinea and the Solomons had been grinding and unforgiving. Heat, mechanical failure, relentless Japanese fighters,
02:03and anti-aircraft fire that grew thicker with every month.
02:07Wilkins had arrived in the theater in February 1942, when the war still felt uncertain and raw.
02:14He had come over with dozens of young crews in the 3rd Bombardment Group, confident, loud, joking about finishing the
02:21war quickly and going home as veterans.
02:23Twenty months later, he was the last one still flying. He had watched the others disappear one by one. Some
02:30were shot down over jungles so dense that rescue was impossible. Others vanished over open ocean, their aircraft never found.
02:37A few managed to bail out, only to be captured or lost in the wilderness. Each month the roster grew
02:43thinner. Each briefing room felt quieter.
02:45Wilkins kept flying. Wilkins kept flying. Not because he believed he was untouchable. Not because he thought himself better than
02:51the men who had died. He survived because he was methodical. He checked fuel every 10 minutes. He watched engine
02:57temperatures like a hawk. He drilled his crew until their movements were automatic. He followed procedure. He trusted formation discipline.
03:05Wilkins believed that careful flying. He believed that careful flying and tight execution could bend probability, if only slightly. But
03:12even he understood the arithmetic of war. The longer you flew, the smaller your margin became.
03:19Wilkins meant 87 missions meant 87 times he had threaded through flak, outrun fighters, or limped home on damaged engines.
03:26It also meant he had outlived nearly everyone who had started beside him. He did not talk about it. He
03:32did not dwell on it.
03:33But somewhere in the quiet moments, crossing the Solomon Sea at dawn, watching clouds slide beneath the wings, he knew
03:40that numbers like his did not go on forever.
03:43And now, on this morning over Rabal, the odds had finally grown impossible. Rabal was not just another target. It
03:51was the Japanese Empire's fortress in the South Pacific. Carved into the northern tip of New Britain, Simpson Harbor formed
03:57a natural volcanic bowl. Deep water, steep jungle ridges, and room enough to anchor an entire fleet. By late 1943,
04:06it had become the most heavily defended base in the theater. Radar stations.
04:10Crowned the hills. Concrete bunkers housed command posts. Airfields at Lakanai, Vunakanau, and beyond fed fighters into the sky within
04:20minutes of detection. More anti-aircraft guns guarded this harbor than Darwin and Port Moresby combined.
04:26Two days earlier, American Marines had landed on Bougainville. They were still digging in, still unloading supplies under threat of
04:34counterattack. If the cruisers and destroyers anchored in Simpson Harbor steamed south, they could shell the beaches, shred supply ships,
04:43and drive the Marines back into the sea.
04:44The invasion was balanced on a knife edge. Fifth Air Force had been given a simple task. Keep those ships
04:51in harbor. Sink them if possible. Damage them if necessary. But do not let them sail.
04:58That was why eight B-25s were now skimming the water at masthead height, flying straight into the most concentrated
05:05air defense network Japan possessed in the region.
05:08It was not a raid for spectacle. It was a raid for time. And time, on Bougainville's beaches, was measured
05:16in blood.
05:17Wilkins' aircraft was a North American B-25 Mitchell, but it was no longer a standard bomber. By late 1943,
05:25the men of Fifth Air Force had transformed the B-25 into something else entirely.
05:31The long, glass bombardier nose, once designed for medium-altitude precision bombing, had been ripped out.
05:38In its place, armor plate and forward-firing machine guns were installed. 4.50 caliber Brownings were mounted solidly in
05:46the nose. More were bolted into side packages along the fuselage.
05:51When Wilkins squeezed the trigger, eight heavy machine guns fired straight ahead. Eight streams of tracers. Hundreds of rounds per
05:58second.
05:59The aircraft no longer approached a target delicately from above. It attacked like a charging animal. The technique they had
06:06refined was called skip-bombing.
06:08Instead of dropping bombs from thousands of feet, the B-25 came in at masthead height, 50 to 100 feet
06:15above the water. So low, that enemy.
06:19Radar struggled to track it. The pilot would rake the ship's deck with machine gun fire, forcing anti-aircraft crews
06:25to dive for cover.
06:26Then, at just a few hundred yards, the bombs would be released. They would strike the surface of the harbor,
06:33skip like flat stones, and smash into the hull at or below the waterline before detonating.
06:39It was brutal. It was precise. And it was deadly. If you survived the approach.
06:45Most of the men who had perfected this method were already gone. They had died testing altitudes, angles, distances.
06:52They had learned the margins in blood. Wilkins understood exactly how thin those margins were.
06:58At 50 feet, there was no room for error. No time to reconsider.
07:02The B-25 had not been built to endure punishment like this. It had been turned into a gun.
07:07And now, it was flying straight into a harbor that was ready to fire back.
07:12The destroyer was turning broadside when Wilkins steadied the nose.
07:16500 yards. The deck below was alive with movement. Tiny figures sprinting toward gun mounts.
07:23Barrels slewing in frantic arcs. Signal flags whipping in the wind.
07:28At this distance, he could see individual crewmen. He pressed the trigger.
07:328.50 caliber machine guns erupted at once.
07:36The Mitchell shuddered as streams of tracers ripped forward,
07:40stitching across the destroyer's bridge and along its gun positions.
07:43Brass casings poured into the cockpit, clattering against metal flooring.
07:47The nose of the aircraft vibrated violently.
07:50The sound of sustained fire merging with the roar of both engines.
07:54400 yards. The destroyer answered.
07:57Orange flashes bloomed from its anti-aircraft mounts.
08:0020-millimeter rounds slashed upward, bright and fast.
08:04Heavier shells from the harbor's shore batteries burst around the formation.
08:07The air between aircraft and ship filled with intersecting lines of red and white tracer fire.
08:13Wilkins did not lift.
08:15300 yards. The destroyer's forward deck disappeared beneath.
08:19Hammering machine gun fire.
08:21Crewmen dove flat or simply vanished behind splintered steel.
08:25Gun crews that had been moments from firing were forced to abandon their sights.
08:30200 yards.
08:32Bombs! His co-pilot shouted.
08:34Wilkins held the nose steady.
08:36The B-25 was so low that he could see the white wake curling along the destroyer's hull.
08:41The release clunked beneath them.
08:44Two 500-pound bombs dropped clean.
08:46They struck the surface of Simpson Harbor with a splash and skipped forward,
08:51bouncing once, twice, flat arcs over dark water,
08:55before slamming into the destroyer's side just below the waterline.
08:58A heartbeat of silence.
09:00Then, both detonated.
09:02The hull erupted outward in a violent plume of smoke and spray.
09:05A column of flame shot skyward as internal ammunition cooked off.
09:10The destroyer's midsection bulged grotesquely.
09:13Steel plates peeled back like paper.
09:15Secondary explosions rippled along the deck.
09:18Wilkins pulled hard on the yoke.
09:20The B-25 clawed upward to 200.
09:22Feet!
09:23Banking left!
09:24That was when the aircraft lurched.
09:26The controls felt wrong.
09:28Loose.
09:29Heavy at the same time.
09:30He corrected.
09:31But the nose wanted to yaw right.
09:33The airplane was fighting him.
09:35A glance over his shoulder told him why.
09:37The vertical stabilizer was gone.
09:40Shrapnel had torn through the tail section.
09:42Hydraulic fluid streamed backward in a thin mist.
09:45The rudder responded sluggishly.
09:47The Mitchell wanted to roll and spin.
09:49He forced it level using throttle and rudder pressure,
09:52both engines screaming at maximum output.
09:55Behind him, the other seven B-25s were pressing in.
09:58He caught flashes of them diving through flak,
10:01guns firing, bombs skipping.
10:03Another destroyer took a hit.
10:05A transport vessel near the docks burst into flame.
10:08But the sky above the harbor was changing.
10:11Dark shapes were dropping in from altitude.
10:13Zeros.
10:14Japanese fighters were arriving from every direction.
10:17Sleek, maneuverable, diving with the sun behind them.
10:20Wilkins saw one of his bombers ahead suddenly.
10:24Bloom into a fireball as cannon shells struck its fuel tanks.
10:28The aircraft disintegrated before it hit the water.
10:31No parachutes.
10:32Another Mitchell rolled inverted, smoke pouring from its wing,
10:36and smashed into the harbor at full speed.
10:38Wilkins counted instinctively.
10:41Eight had entered.
10:41Six were still flying.
10:43His own aircraft was barely controllable.
10:45The hydraulics were gone.
10:47The tail was shredded, and the destroyer he had struck was now breaking apart,
10:51listing sharply, smoke pouring from its open hull.
10:54The mission objective, in that instant, had been achieved.
10:58He could turn toward the harbor mouth.
11:00He could try to get out.
11:02Then he saw the cruiser.
11:04Bigger.
11:05Heavier.
11:06Its turrets already swinging toward the withdrawing American formation.
11:09And its guns were not yet silent.
11:12The cruiser was already turning.
11:13Even through the vibration of his damaged aircraft,
11:17Wilkins could see the slow, deliberate swing of its main turrets.
11:20The ship was bigger than the destroyer he had just crippled.
11:25Longer hull, thicker armor, heavier guns.
11:28Its anti-aircraft mounts were coming alive one by one,
11:31tracking the retreating B-25s clawing their way toward open water.
11:35Standard procedure was clear.
11:38Strike.
11:38Break contact.
11:39Regroup.
11:40He had done his job.
11:41The destroyer was sinking.
11:43The formation had inflicted damage across the harbor.
11:46His own aircraft was barely holding together.
11:49The vertical stabilizer was gone.
11:51Hydraulics were failing.
11:53One engine temperature needle was edging higher than it should.
11:56Any reasonable pilot would turn for home.
11:58Any responsible squadron leader would preserve what remained of his force.
12:02He had survived 87 missions by respecting that logic.
12:07Wilkins eased the nose toward the harbor entrance.
12:10The coastline ahead shimmered in the tropical heat.
12:13Beyond it lay the Solomon Sea.
12:15Open water.
12:16Distance.
12:17A narrow chance of escape.
12:19Then, the cruiser's first heavy burst fired.
12:22The concussion rolled through the air like distant thunder.
12:26Columns of...
12:26Water erupted near one of his wingmen.
12:29The ship's anti-aircraft batteries followed, spewing a continuous stream of tracer fire
12:34that arced directly into the path of the withdrawing bombers.
12:37The cruiser was not shooting blindly.
12:40It was tracking them.
12:42Wilkins saw one of his B-25s jerk violently as shells struck its wing root.
12:46The aircraft staggered but kept flying, engines trailing smoke.
12:50Another dipped low, skimming the harbor surface to avoid the incoming fire.
12:54If that cruiser kept its guns on them, more would go down.
12:58He glanced to his right.
13:00His co-pilot was young, on his third mission, eyes wide, jaw set tight, waiting for instruction,
13:06trusting him without question.
13:08Wilkins looked back toward the cruiser.
13:10They had no bombs left.
13:12All that remained were the forward guns and whatever ammunition the crew still carried.
13:17He could leave.
13:18He could throttle forward, ride whatever lift remained in the shattered tail,
13:22and try to outrun the fighters that were already descending, behind them.
13:26He might make it to friendly territory.
13:29He might even land the aircraft.
13:31Or he could turn.
13:32Not to sink the cruiser.
13:34Just to make it look at him.
13:36Just to pull every gun in that harbor onto a single already crippled bomber.
13:41The Mitchell shuddered again as another distant burst exploded nearby.
13:46The cruiser's barrels continued to follow his squadron.
13:49Wilkins pushed both throttles forward.
13:51The engines responded with a strained howl.
13:54He banked left, straight back toward the cruiser.
13:57We're going in, he said quietly.
14:00The co-pilot did not argue.
14:02At 800 yards, they descended to 50 feet.
14:05They had no bombs left.
14:06This would be a strafing run.
14:08And every gun in Simpson Harbor was waiting.
14:12The cruiser filled the windscreen.
14:14At 50 feet above the water, it looked less like a ship and more like a moving fortress,
14:19tiered decks stacked with gun mounts, barrels already tracking his approach.
14:24The rising sun glinted off steel plating and polished.
14:28Optics.
14:29Sailors ran along the deck, some scrambling for cover,
14:32others locking themselves into firing positions.
14:35600 yards.
14:36The first volley came all at once.
14:39Every anti-aircraft mount on the cruiser opened fire in a single synchronized eruption.
14:4540-millimeter guns hammered in rapid bursts.
14:4825-millimeter cannons spat flame.
14:51Heavy machine guns joined in, creating a continuous sheet of tracer fire that stretched from the ship to the sky.
14:57It wasn't scattered fire.
15:00It was a wall.
15:01Wilkins flew straight into it.
15:03500 yards.
15:04The cockpit exploded inward.
15:06The windshield shattered under the impact of flying fragments.
15:10Glass sprayed across his face in uniform.
15:12A violent jolt ran through the fuselage as multiple rounds punched into the nose section.
15:18Something slammed into his left arm.
15:20Hot, blunt, immediate.
15:22For a split second, his grip loosened.
15:24He tightened it again.
15:25400 yards.
15:27He squeezed the trigger.
15:29The 8.50 caliber guns roared back.
15:32To life.
15:33Drowning out even the thunder of the cruiser's batteries.
15:35Tracers poured forward in a relentless stream, stitching across the ship's superstructure.
15:41Gun crews ducked or collapsed under the impact.
15:44Metal sparked and splintered along railings and bridge windows.
15:47The B-25 shook violently.
15:50Warning lights flickered across the instrument panel.
15:52The No. 2 engine coughed once, then steadied under full throttle.
15:57The damaged tail made the aircraft feel unstable, as if it were balancing on a knife edge.
16:02Every correction required force.
16:04Every movement threatened to send them into a roll they might not recover from.
16:08300 yards.
16:09The cruiser's bridge took sustained fire.
16:12Windows burst outward.
16:13Splinters and debris flew in all directions.
16:15The anti-aircraft rhythm faltered, just slightly, as crews were forced to take cover.
16:20200 yards.
16:22The wall of tracers thinned.
16:24Wilkins held the trigger down.
16:26He could see individual faces now.
16:28Japanese sailors throwing.
16:30Themselves flat.
16:31Others dragging wounded men away from gun positions.
16:34Smoke began to coil upward from several mounts, where his rounds had struck ammunition lockers and ready racks.
16:40100 yards.
16:41The cruiser loomed impossibly large.
16:44Wilkins released the trigger and hauled back on the yoke with everything he had left.
16:48The B-25 clawed upward, clearing the cruiser's forward mast by what felt like inches.
16:53The aircraft lurched violently, tail struggling to stabilize.
16:58The No. 2 engine sputtered again, this time more sharply.
17:01They roared over the length of the ship so close that Wilkins could see the white wake breaking along its
17:07hull.
17:08Behind him, every anti-aircraft gun on the cruiser was firing at a single target.
17:14Him.
17:15He forced the Mitchell into a shallow climb, smoke trailing from the right engine.
17:20The control column trembled in his wounded hand.
17:23Oil pressure was dropping.
17:25The engine temperature needle was now buried at the top of its gauge.
17:28Then, the No. 2 engine seized.
17:31The propeller jerked once, twice, and began windmilling uselessly in the slipstream.
17:38Wilkins feathered it as quickly as he could, fighting the violent yaw that followed.
17:42The aircraft sagged, suddenly heavier, bleeding speed.
17:46But when he looked back toward the harbor entrance, he saw something else.
17:51Five B-25s were clearing the defensive perimeter.
17:54The cruiser's guns were no longer tracking them.
17:57They were still tracking him.
17:58The cruiser fell behind them.
18:00But the sky did not empty.
18:02Wilkins had barely stabilized the Mitchell on one engine when the first zero dropped out of the sun.
18:08It came from high astern.
18:10Fast, deliberate, wing steady.
18:13The Japanese pilot had already chosen his angle.
18:15A crippled bomber trailing smoke alone over the harbor mouth.
18:19There would be no easier target that morning.
18:22Fighters!
18:23Someone shouted over the intercom.
18:25The top turret gunner swung his weapons upward and fired.
18:28Tracers reached for the diving silhouette, thin red.
18:31Lines climbing toward the incoming aircraft.
18:34The zero split at the last second, rolling left.
18:37Cannon fire flashing from its wings.
18:39Twenty millimeter rounds walked up the fuselage.
18:42The B-25 shuddered violently as shells tore through aluminum skin.
18:47Instruments flickered.
18:48A burst punched through the radio operator's compartment.
18:51Wilkins heard a scream.
18:53Cut short.
18:53The zero roared past so close he could see the pilot's goggles.
18:58Then, two more appeared.
18:59They did not attack recklessly.
19:01They circled, gaining position, coordinating.
19:04This was no chaotic swarm.
19:06These were carrier-trained aviators, men from Zuikaku and Shokaku,
19:11accustomed to killing larger aircraft.
19:13Wilkins kept the nose low.
19:15Altitude meant options for them.
19:18Low over the water, he limited the angles of attack, but he also limited his own escape.
19:23With only one engine pulling and a shredded tail fighting him, maneuver was almost impossible.
19:29Every correction felt delayed, heavy as if the aircraft were flying through.
19:34Syrup?
19:35Another zero came in from the port side.
19:38The waste gunner opened fire, short-controlled bursts.
19:41For a moment, the fighter's wing roots sparked under impact.
19:44The Japanese pilot did not break away.
19:47He pressed his attack, cannon shells slamming into the Mitchell's left wing.
19:51A sudden mist erupted behind them.
19:53Fuel.
19:54Wilkins smelled it instantly.
19:56Raw aviation gasoline flooding the slipstream and curling back toward the cockpit.
20:02The left tank had been ruptured.
20:04Self-sealing layers meant to swell and close around punctures were failing under sustained hits.
20:09One tracer round into that stream would turn the entire aircraft into a torch.
20:15He pushed the nose down, trading what little altitude he had for speed.
20:19The airspeed needle crept upward, but the vibration intensified.
20:23The damaged airframe was protesting every knot.
20:26The fighters adapted.
20:28One climbed high, preparing for another diving pass.
20:31Two more formed wide arcs to cut off his path toward open water.
20:34They knew he could not outrun them.
20:37They only had to be patient.
20:39The top turret fell silent.
20:41Either the gunner was out of ammunition, or he was no longer alive.
20:45Wilkins's wounded arm throbbed with every movement of the control column.
20:48Blood soaked into his sleeve, sticky and warm.
20:51He shifted grip to compensate, using more rudder, more throttle,
20:55fighting a symmetry that threatened to roll them into the sea.
20:59Ahead, the coastline slipped behind.
21:01Open water stretched out before them.
21:03It should have meant hope.
21:06Instead, it meant isolation.
21:09The next attack came from directly above.
21:12Three zeroes dove together in a coordinated pass.
21:15Cannon fire stitched along the spine of the aircraft,
21:18punching through control cables and structural supports.
21:21The rudder response grew weaker.
21:23The left aileron felt sluggish, as though something inside the wing had broken free.
21:28Then, the remaining engine coughed.
21:30Just once.
21:32Wilkins's eyes flicked to the gauges.
21:35Oil temperature was climbing beyond limits.
21:37Fuel.
21:38Pressure was fluctuating erratically.
21:40The engine caught again, sputtered, then roared back to life under full throttle.
21:45For how long?
21:47Another zero lined up from dead astern.
21:49The waste gunner fired the last of his ammunition in a desperate burst.
21:53The fighter veered slightly, then corrected and fired.
21:56The engine coughed again.
21:58This time, it did not recover.
21:59The propeller slowed, then spun freely in the slipstream as power died.
22:03The sudden silence inside the cockpit was more terrifying than the gunfire.
22:08Only wind.
22:09Only the whistle of air through shattered glass.
22:12The B-25 began to descend immediately.
22:15Wilkins trimmed for best glide speed, forcing the nose to a shallow angle.
22:20Ninety knots.
22:21Maybe enough to carry them a few miles from the harbor.
22:24The zeroes were still circling.
22:25For a moment, they seemed almost cautious, as if surprised the bomber had survived this long.
22:30He keyed the intercom.
22:32Prepare to ditch.
22:34No one argued.
22:35Below them, the Pacific rolled in long, dark swells.
22:39He lined the aircraft parallel to the waves.
22:42If they hit wrong, the bomber would cartwheel and break apart instantly.
22:46If they hit right, they might live long enough to get out.
22:50Behind them, the fighters made one last pass.
22:53More rounds tore through the fuselage, as Wilkins held the glide steady.
22:58One engine gone, the other dead.
23:01Hydraulics gone, fuel leaking, tail half missing.
23:04The Pacific was rising fast in the windscreen, and there was nothing left to fight but gravity.
23:10The Pacific filled the windscreen.
23:13Wilkins held the glide at 90 knots, forcing the crippled bomber to stay level with small, deliberate inputs.
23:19Without engines, without hydraulics, the B-25 felt strangely calm, almost obedient.
23:26The violent shaking had stopped.
23:28The gunfire had faded behind them.
23:30Only wind remained.
23:32The swells below were four feet high, rolling in long, dark lines.
23:36He angled the nose slightly, aligning parallel to the waves.
23:40If they struck across the swell, the aircraft would flip and disintegrate.
23:45Gear up.
23:46Flaps up, he said into the intercom.
23:48His voice was steady.
23:50No response from the radio compartment.
23:52At 500 feet, the Mitchell felt heavy.
23:55At 300, the sea seemed to rise faster than it should.
23:59At 100 feet, Wilkins eased the nose back just slightly, bleeding off the last of their speed.
24:05The bomber hit hard.
24:06The nose dug into the water and a wall of spray exploded over the cockpit.
24:11Metal screamed.
24:13The fuselage buckled violently as the aircraft slewed sideways.
24:17Wilkins was thrown forward against his harness, his wounded arm jolting with blinding pain.
24:22The B-25 began to break apart almost immediately.
24:26Water burst through the shattered windscreen and flooded the cockpit in seconds.
24:30Cold, forceful, relentless.
24:32The aircraft pitched nose down, heavy engines dragging it under.
24:36Wilkins released his harness and fought to stand in rising water.
24:40The co-pilot was already struggling free beside him, blood running from a gash.
24:45Across his forehead.
24:46The overhead escape hatch.
24:48Wilkins reached up and pulled.
24:50Nothing.
24:51The frame had warped in the impact.
24:54Water was at their waist now.
24:55The nose angled downward more sharply.
24:58The instrument panel disappeared beneath the surface.
25:00They pulled together.
25:02The hatch shifted.
25:03Barely.
25:04Another surge of water slammed into them, knocking Wilkins backward.
25:08He swallowed salt and forced himself upright again.
25:11His left arm hung useless at his side.
25:14He braced with his right, planted his boots against the console, and heaved upward with everything
25:19he had left.
25:20The hatch tore open.
25:23The co-pilot climbed through first, vanishing into the gray light above.
25:27Wilkins grabbed the edge and pulled himself up.
25:29As he did, the aircraft lurched violently, nose plunging deeper.
25:33He slipped.
25:34The cockpit vanished beneath him.
25:36Cold darkness closed over his head.
25:38He could not see.
25:40Could not breathe.
25:41The wrecked interior spun around him as the bomber sank, and he, uh, kicked hard, groping upward
25:47until his hand found open air.
25:49He broke the surface, gasping.
25:51Ten feet away, the co-pilot was treading water, coughing, searching.
25:55Behind them, the B-25's tail rose briefly from the sea, an awkward, silent monument.
26:00Air trapped inside the fuselage held it there for a few final seconds.
26:05Then, it slipped beneath the surface.
26:08The ocean closed over it without a sound.
26:11Wilkins tried to swim.
26:12His left arm would not respond.
26:14Blood spread into the water around him, thin and dark.
26:18Each kick felt weaker than the last.
26:20The adrenaline that had carried him through flak and fighters was gone now, replaced by a
26:24spreading cold.
26:26Above them, a zero circled once.
26:28It descended low.
26:30Wilkins waited for gunfire.
26:32None came.
26:32The fighter passed overhead and rocked its wings in a brief, silent gesture, then turned
26:37back toward Rabool.
26:39The sky emptied.
26:40There were no ships in sight.
26:42No rescue aircraft.
26:43Just two men in open ocean, fifty miles from friendly territory.
26:47The co-pilot reached him, trying to hold him up.
26:49They drifted.
26:50Forty minutes, perhaps less.
26:53Wilkins' movements slowed.
26:54His head dipped beneath the surface once, twice.
26:57The co-pilot tightened his grip, fighting the drag.
27:00But exhaustion does not negotiate.
27:02Eventually, the younger man faced a choice no training had prepared him for.
27:06Hold on.
27:08Or live.
27:09He let go.
27:11Raymond Wilkins slipped beneath the Pacific for the final time.
27:14The battle was over.
27:16The drowning was not.
27:18Back over Simpson Harbor, the cruiser's guns fell silent.
27:21Not because it had been destroyed.
27:23Because it had been forced to fight for its own survival.
27:26When Wilkins turned back, every anti-aircraft mount on that ship shifted toward him.
27:32Every barrel elevated.
27:33Every crew focused on the single bomber racing straight into their line of fire.
27:38For those seconds, those brief, violent seconds, the cruiser stopped tracking the rest of the
27:44formation.
27:45Five B-25s cleared the harbor perimeter during that window.
27:49Five damaged bombers, wings shredded, fuselages torn open, engines coughing smoke, made it
27:55beyond the densest belt of anti-aircraft fire.
27:58Japanese fighters pursued, but without the cruiser's coordinated tracking, the withdrawal
28:03fractured into smaller targets, harder to finish.
28:06One bomber limped home on a single engine.
28:09Another landed with dozens of shell holes punched clean through its wings.
28:13One ditched offshore and was rescued by a patrol boat.
28:16But they made it out.
28:17At Dobadura in New Guinea, ground crews counted the damage in stunned silence.
28:22Armor plates peeled back.
28:24Control cables frayed.
28:25Hydraulic lines severed.
28:27Men were pulled from turrets with shrapnel wounds and burned hands.
28:30They had expected losses.
28:32They had not expected to see so many aircraft return.
28:35Intelligence officers began the cold accounting.
28:38Ships struck.
28:39Harbor facilities damaged.
28:41Fires confirmed.
28:42Most importantly, no major Japanese naval sortie toward Bougainville.
28:46The cruisers and destroyers that might have shelled the Marine beachhead remained in port.
28:52Repairs took priority.
28:54Command hesitated.
28:56Within days, elements of the carrier air groups that had reinforced Raboul were withdrawn,
29:01deemed too valuable to risk under increasingly aggressive low-level attacks.
29:05The Marines on Bougainville held their perimeter.
29:09Supplies continued to land.
29:11Artillery was brought ashore.
29:12The invasion survived its most vulnerable days.
29:15Official reports would reduce it to numbers.
29:18Ships sunk or damaged.
29:19Aircraft lost.
29:20Men killed or missing.
29:22But numbers do not capture the exchange that occurred at 800 yards from a Japanese cruiser.
29:27One crippled bomber.
29:29Five that flew home.
29:30Seconds of suppression.
29:32Years of life for the men inside those aircraft.
29:35Years they would live, marry, raise children, grow old.
29:39That was the purchase price.
29:41And Raymond Wilkins paid it in full.
29:44Three days later, the recommendation was written,
29:47Conspicuous gallantry.
29:49Above and beyond the call of duty.
29:51Voluntary action against overwhelming odds.
29:54The paperwork moved upward through command channels, group, wing, 5th Air Force.
30:00General George Kenney reviewed it personally.
30:02In Washington, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall signed his approval.
30:07In January 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the award.
30:12The Medal of Honor would be presented posthumously to Major Raymond Harrell Wilkins.
30:18In California, a telegram arrived first, then a letter.
30:22His parents accepted the medal in his place.
30:25They stood in pressed clothes beneath bright ceremony lights
30:28and received a decoration that could not replace their son.
30:33In Australia, a different letter arrived weeks later,
30:36one Wilkins had written before the mission.
30:38It spoke of the future, of finishing 100 missions,
30:42of medical school after the war,
30:44of coming back, of marriage,
30:46of a life carefully imagined in ink.
30:49The letter arrived after he was already gone.
30:51He never reached Mission 88.
30:53He never returned to A.E. Australia.
30:56He never became the doctor he had planned to be.
30:59The Pacific kept his aircraft.
31:01And it kept his body.
31:02What remained was a name in official records,
31:06a medal in a glass case,
31:08and the quiet space left behind in the lives of those who had expected him to come home.
31:13Fifty miles from Raboul, somewhere beneath shifting Pacific currents,
31:17the remains of his B-25 settled into silence.
31:20Aluminum skin slowly dulled.
31:22Fabric rotted away.
31:24Steel corroded under salt and time.
31:26What had once roared through flak and tracer fire became another shape on the ocean floor,
31:31indistinguishable from the wreckage of so many others.
31:34The war moved on without pause.
31:37Raboul was struck again in the weeks that followed.
31:39More raids.
31:40More losses.
31:41More lessons learned.
31:43Eventually, the Great Fortress was isolated rather than assaulted,
31:47bypassed as American forces advanced westward.
31:49The harbor that had once seemed untouchable became strategically irrelevant.
31:54But on November 2nd, 1943, it was not irrelevant.
32:00It was decisive.
32:02And for a few violent minutes over Simpson Harbor,
32:05a single damaged bomber forced one of the most powerful bases in the Pacific
32:09to look inward instead of outward.
32:12History rarely lingers on moments like that.
32:15It records tonnage sunk, divisions landed, territories captured.
32:21It does not always record the instant when a man could have turned away and chose not to.
32:26In museums, his metal rests behind glass.
32:29Visitors pass by, some pausing, most moving on.
32:33A name.
32:34A date.
32:34A citation written in formal language.
32:37What it cannot display is the sound of eight machine guns firing at 50 feet,
32:41or the sight of a cruiser's gun shifting away from five retreating aircraft,
32:46or the quiet decision made in the space between survival and sacrifice.
32:51The Pacific holds the aircraft, but it does not have to hold the memory.
32:55Or,
32:55you
32:56At
32:56a
32:56fact,
32:56you
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