Operation Vengeance - Controversy

Controversy

Lanphier initially received credit for the kill of Yamamoto's bomber, but the other pilots on the mission were immediately skeptical. Although one of the most expertly-executed missions in history, the interception was subsequently marred by controversy over who actually shot down Yamamoto and by Navy outrage over unauthorized releases of operational details to the press, including an October 1943 issue of Time Magazine which featured articles on both the shootdown and Lanphier by name. Mitchell had been nominated for the Medal of Honor for the mission, but as a result of the security issues, this was downgraded to the Navy Cross, which he and all the pilots of the killer flight were subsequently awarded.

After the war, surviving members of the mission, including Mitchell, met with a Japanese pilot, Soichi Sugita, who had flown in the fighter escort. He told Mitchell that neither he nor any of the other Zero pilots had claimed a P-38 that day, but that he had heavily damaged a P-38 escorting another that had not dropped its tanks. The cause of Hine's disappearance is still officially undetermined. It was also found that none of the escorting Japanese fighters was shot down, and only one was damaged enough that it required a day of repair at Buin, so that Lanphier's claim for a Zero was not substantiated. Also records confirmed that only two bombers had been shot down, not three, and subsequently the Army Air Forces officially awarded half credits to Lanphier and Barber for the destruction of the bomber that crashed in the jungle, and half credits to Barber and Holmes for the bomber that crashed at sea.

A video-taped interview in 1985 with another of the escorting Zero pilots, Kenji Yanagiya, appeared to corroborate Barber's claim. Barber petitioned the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records to have his half credit on the bomber shared with Lanphier changed to a whole credit. The Air Force History Office in September 1991 advised the board that "enough uncertainty" existed for both Lanphier’s and Barber’s claims to be accepted. The board split on Barber’s petition, and Secretary of the Air Force Donald B. Rice ruled to retain the shared credit. Barber then applied to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to have the ruling of the Secretary of the Air Force overturned and the opposing claims re-investigated, but the court refused to intervene.

Several ground inspections analyzed the crash site, and determined that the path of the bullet impacts validated Barber's account, and invalidated Lanphier's claim: "All visible gunfire and shrapnel damage was caused by bullets entering from immediately behind the bomber".

In the May 2006 issue of Air Force Magazine, Douglas S. Canning, a former member of the 347th Fighter Group who flew the Yamamoto mission (Canning escorted Lieutenant Holmes back to the Russells) and was friends with both Lanphier and Barber, published a letter in which he stated that Lanphier, in addition to writing the official report, medal citations, and several magazine articles, had also written a detailed manuscript, never published, claiming he alone shot down Yamamoto. Until reading that manuscript, Barber had been willing to share half credit for the kill. Canning cites the testimony of the Japanese Zero pilot, Yanagiya, that Yamamoto's Betty crashed 20 to 30 seconds after being hit by fire from a P-38, and from Admiral Ugaki on the second Betty that Yamamoto's plane crashed 20 seconds after being struck. Canning stated categorically that the P-38Gs flown that day did not have aileron boost to assist in turning (as did later models) and that it was physically impossible for Lanphier's aircraft to have made the 180 degree turn he claimed in order to shoot down Yamamoto.