During World War I, military aircraft conducted operations primarily in daylight hours, aside from night bombing raids by the Germans and later the British and French. Early in World War II, the Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force were finding it so costly to bomb enemy targets during the day that by late 1940 they were flying the majority of their bombing missions at night. To counter this, defenders on both sides perfected airborne intercept radar that made night fighting more practical and removed the safety blanket that darkness had provided. Both Germany and Britain pioneered the development of radar and night fighting tactics.
When the United States entered the war in December 1941, the wheels were already in motion for production of a specialized American all-weather night fighter. Northrop won the contract for what would become the P-61 Black Widow, the first aircraft designed from the ground up for the task. It would carve out a widely feared reputation with both Japanese and Luftwaffe aircrews that flew night missions. The Widow's lethal bite could rival anything the enemy had to offer. It bristled with four forward-firing 20mm cannons in the belly and a dorsal turret that held four .50-caliber machine guns (some of the early models were produced with no dorsal turret because mass production of the Boeing B-29 Super*fortress was using up most of the turret production).
Even back in the early 1940s, a sophisticated aircraft like the P-61 could not be designed, tested and made operational in a few months. The first P-61s did not reach the forward areas in the Pacific until late June 1944. As a result, the Black Widow's amazing record was compiled in just over a year.
The 6th Night Fighter Squadron was the first to receive the new aircraft. The squadron had already seen combat in the Pacific, flying the Douglas P-70, a night fighter developed from the A-20 Havoc. In early March 1944, the 6th was pulled back to Hawaii to prepare for delivery of the new night fighter, which began arriving in early May. A short time later, the squadron was checked out, and its pilots began their long flight to Saipan. They island-hopped from John Rogers Field in Hawaii to Palmyra Island, to Canton Island and on to Tarawa. From there they hit Kwajalein, Eniwetok and finally Saipan. Because Saipan was constantly raided at night by Japanese bombers, there was very little time for the 6th to get adjusted. Its crews were almost immediately thrown into demanding night patrols.
Two P-61 aircrews in the Pacific ended their tour with four confirmed kills, and one crew made ace. One of the four-victory crews, Lieutenant Dale Haberman and his radio operator (R/O) Lieutenant Ray Mooney, flew an early model P-61A named Moonhappy with the 6th NFS. On the night of June 30, 1944, just days after the 6th had gone operational on Saipan, they encountered a Mitsubishi G4M2 "Betty" bomber escorted by a Japanese fighter, most likely a Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero. What made this confrontation especially dramatic was the fact that the intercom exchanges between Haberman and Mooney were transmitted back to base during the harrowing duel, and the unfolding action drew a crowd of listeners.
In the middle of an uneventful patrol, the silence was suddenly broken when control radioed that it had detected an intruder coming straight toward Lieuten*ant Haberman's P-61. Of course the enemy pilot had no idea of the trap awaiting him as the Black Widow began setting up for the kill. Staying below the ap*proaching Betty's flight path until it passed over them, Haberman went to full power and did a gut-wrenching 180 in order to get in behind the enemy bomber, which was headed straight for Saipan and its airfields.
As they closed on the radar image, Lieutenant Mooney told Haberman to throttle back slightly because the single target had suddenly become two—one of which was a Japanese fighter tucked in close to the bomber. The enemy planes climbed to 17,000 feet, still unaware of the night fighter closing from their 6 o'clock position. As the gap narrowed to about 700 feet, Mooney told Haberman to start firing, and before he could finish his sentence the four 20mms opened up with a deafening roar as the P-61 continued to close. The cannon rounds walked all over the hapless Betty's fuselage, and it immediately burst into flames, dropped its nose sharply and plummeted straight down to the water.
Haberman and Mooney had scored the first P-61 victory in the Pacific theater. The fight was far from over, however, as the lone Japanese fighter had moved far out to the side and eased in behind Moonhappy. Although the night fighters did not use tracer rounds for good reason, the enemy fighter pilot had probably been in a position to see the fire coming from the 20mm barrels as Haberman flamed the Betty. From there, he moved in on the P-61's rear.
It didn't take long for Mooney to realize where the second enemy plane had gone. He yelled: "Look out Hap! There's a Jap fighter on our tail!" Listeners back at squadron ops were held spellbound by the silence that followed. In the interval the enemy fighter fired a burst that missed wide. Once he had been alerted to the danger, Haberman dropped his port wing with the nose of the P-61 pointed down at a steep angle, heading for the deck at full throttle. As he plummeted he kicked the rudders, taking evasive action to make sure the bogey was not still on his tail.
At about 1,200 feet above the water, Haberman leveled off, still maintaining maximum airspeed. Then he made a quick turn, hoping to go back and get a radar lock on the enemy plane, but nothing showed up. The fighter had disappeared into the night. It was an unusual incident: The Betty had probably been serving as the fighter's eyes and ears, and that's why he had been tucked in so close, making only one blip on the radar screen.
On Christmas night 1944, the Japanese intensified their nocturnal attacks against Saipan. The squadron intercepted many of the raiders and shot down several. Lieutenant Robert L. Ferguson, a pilot in the 6th, was flying in his assigned P-61A-5 named The Virgin Widow. He vividly recalled that mission, during which his Black Widow made a spectacular kill: "We scrambled at 2200 hours and it didn't take long to get airborne because our equipment—oxygen masks, helmets and parachutes—was already in the cockpit, and when we were dropped off on the flight line, the crew chief was ready to strap us in and by 2204 hours we were airborne. Control directed us close enough to get a radar contact at seven miles. We were drawn lower and lower and finally, at 1,500 feet, I figured we were tracking a surface craft and didn't want to fly into the water. This type of intercept happened many times and we had to check every one out because sometimes the Japanese bombers came in right above the water."
With enemy activity unusually high, it didn't take long for control to radio another contact to the P-61 crewmen. They were told to steer 180 degrees, with the bogey 45 miles out flying at 10,000 feet. Within minutes, the intruder's altitude increased and control told them to move up to 15,000 feet. By this time the R/O had a contact at five miles, with the target slightly above them. The overtake speed was 40 mph. When the range decreased to 2,500 feet, Lieutenant Ferguson put down flaps and reduced speed by at least 50 mph in order to ease in from behind on the bogey's blind spot. With*out warning, however, the target began to accelerate.
"My closure was lost when he started pulling away," Ferguson said, "so I pulled the flaps and this gave me a boost that settled us in behind at about 1,200 feet, where I was able to get a visual. I continued closing down to 300 feet, where I positively identified it as a Mitsubishi Betty bomber, which was very fast [280 mph] with a long range of over 2,500 miles. I moved in directly behind and level with him before firing a short burst into his port engine and the forward part of its fuselage. Seconds later, I observed a small explosion in the fuselage, which quickly turned into a red glow as the fire spread just behind the wing root and the Betty's airspeed dropped abruptly, causing me to make a sharp turn to port while throttling back to avoid an overshoot. We eased up alongside the stricken bomber, gradually easing back to try and get behind him for another 20mm burst. I put a few rounds into it and the nose dropped and by now the entire aircraft was engulfed in flames. It went straight into the ocean and exploded on impact."