Description
The controversy over who shot down Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on April 18, 1943, is one of the most fascinating disputes in American aviation history. And the man that I interviewed in 1984, Thomas G. Lanphier Jr., was at the center of it.
Lanphier maintained that he had personally shot down the aircraft carrying Yamamoto. But another American P-38 pilot, Rex T. Barber, also claimed the victory, and subsequent investigations have generally favored Barber's account.
What makes the story particularly interesting is that both men participated in the same extraordinary mission, but their accounts of what happened in the air were fundamentally different.
The mission was Operation Vengeance. On April 18, 1943, 16 American P-38 Lightning fighters took off from Guadalcanal to intercept Yamamoto, the commander in chief of Japan's Combined Fleet and one of the principal architects of the Pearl Harbor attack.
American intelligence had intercepted and decrypted a Japanese message revealing Yamamoto's precise flight itinerary. The American pilots one of which was Tom Lanphier, flew approximately 400 miles at low altitude to avoid Japanese radar and arrived near Bougainville just as Yamamoto's formation appeared.
The Americans attacked, and both Japanese bombers were destroyed. Yamamoto was killed.
The question was: Which American pilot actually brought down Yamamoto's bomber?
Thomas Lanphier's version: Lanphier said in my interview with him that he first engaged Japanese Zero fighters, then spotted a bomber near the treetops. He claimed he attacked from the side and shot off its right wing, causing it to crash.
Rex Barber's version: Barber said he approached Yamamoto's bomber from behind, firing into its engines and fuselage. He observed the bomber smoking and descending toward the jungle. Barber insisted that his gunfire, not Lanphier's, caused the fatal crash.
Why historians increasingly favor Barber. The wreckage: Investigators found the bomber's right wing close to the fuselage. This contradicted Lanphier's description of shooting the wing off in flight.
Japanese eyewitness testimony: An escorting Japanese fighter pilot described the bomber being attacked from behind, consistent with Barber's account. Yamamoto's wounds: Japanese medical evidence indicated that bullets struck Yamamoto from behind, again supporting Barber's account.
A particularly significant assessment appeared in 2024. Air Force historian Daniel L. Haulman, who had served on the official 1985 review board, wrote that the subsequent evidence convinced him Barber alone deserved credit.
The Air Force has not given Barber sole credit.