They increased the amount of ammunition available.
They made the nose more dangerous to attack.
Accounts of Old 666 emphasize the unusually large number of .50-caliber weapons fitted aboard compared with a standard B-17E.
The exact configuration evolved, but the principle was obvious.
If Japanese fighters were going to come close, Zeamer wanted them entering gunfire from as many directions as possible.
This was not decoration.
Every extra weapon added weight.
Every ammunition box added weight.
Every modification created maintenance work.
The crew accepted those costs because they had seen what enemy fighters could do.
Old 666 became a bomber rebuilt around memory.
Every Modification Represented a Previous Fright
A gun added near the nose meant somebody remembered an attack from the front.
More ammunition meant somebody remembered running low.
Improved fields of fire meant somebody had watched an enemy fighter pass through a blind area.
Combat aircraft often evolve through engineering offices.
Old 666 evolved partly through crew experience.
That gave the airplane a strange character.
It was battered but increasingly dangerous.
Its serial number made it memorable.
Its crew's willingness to improvise made it distinctive.
Nobody looking at the patched Fortress would have guessed that its greatest mission would not involve dropping bombs.
The most important thing Old 666 would carry on June 16 was film.
The Intelligence Requirement Came From an Invasion Still Months Away
Allied planners were looking northward through the Solomon chain.
Bougainville would eventually become the site of a major Allied landing.
One objective was to establish airfields that could help isolate the enormous Japanese base at Rabaul.
The strategy did not require capturing every Japanese position.
It required seizing selected locations, building air power forward, bypassing some enemy strongholds, and gradually turning major Japanese bases into isolated fortresses that could be bombed and cut off.
To choose landing areas, planners needed accurate terrain information.
The western side of Bougainville offered potential approaches.
Empress Augusta Bay would later become especially important.
But a map created from incomplete prewar information was not enough.
Jungle-covered terrain can hide everything that matters tactically.
A photograph taken from altitude could reveal river mouths.
Possible roads.
Clearings.
Airstrips.
Coastal shapes.
Defensive construction.
Even photographs that did not show every Japanese weapon could help specialists create improved maps.
That work depended on photographic coverage.
Zeamer's mission was therefore connected to men he would never meet.
Infantrymen.
Engineers.
Marines.
Naval planners.
Landing-craft crews.
Artillery officers.
Pilots who would later fly from fields built on Bougainville.
None of them could help Old 666 on June 16.
Old 666 could help them.
That imbalance was part of the reason the crew volunteered.
The Mission Had Already Been Considered Extremely Dangerous
A lone B-17 flying toward a defended Japanese area presented an obvious target.
No formation meant no neighboring bomber guns.
No fighter escort meant every Japanese interceptor could concentrate on the Fortress.
The long flight meant there would be no quick rescue if something went wrong.
Most importantly, the photographic run would force predictable flight over enemy territory.
Other crews understood those facts.
The assignment was not attractive.
Zeamer and his men accepted it.
Volunteering did not mean they believed themselves immortal.
It meant they preferred knowing exactly who would be flying the aircraft.
Their crew had become unusually cohesive.
They trusted Old 666 because they had worked on it themselves.
They trusted the guns because they had placed many of them.
They trusted one another because combat had already tested them.
When a mission sounds almost unreasonable, familiarity can become the only reassurance available.
Joseph Sarnoski Would Have One of the Most Exposed Jobs
Second Lieutenant Joseph Raymond Sarnoski served as bombardier.
On a normal bombing mission, the bombardier's most famous responsibility came over the target.
He identified the aiming point, operated the bombsight, and released the bombs.
On this mission, there were no bombs to place on a factory or airfield in the usual way.
The nose position still mattered enormously.
The forward part of a B-17 provided observation and defensive fire.
During fighter attacks, Sarnoski could man weapons aimed toward enemy aircraft approaching from ahead.
That position became especially important because frontal attacks reduced the amount of time available for defensive response.
A Japanese fighter approaching from the nose could close with astonishing speed.
The bomber gunner might have only seconds to track, fire, and duck away from incoming rounds.
The fighter pilot had the same compressed window.
One side's mistake could become immediate.
Old 666's modifications made the nose more dangerous than the enemy might expect.
That advantage would matter.
It would not make the nose safe.
The Crew Took Off Into a Mission That Began Quietly
This is the strange thing about many famous combat stories.
The first hours are ordinary.
Engines start.
Ground crews pull chocks.
The pilot checks instruments.
The aircraft taxis.
Takeoff power comes up.
The runway moves beneath the wheels.
Then the bomber climbs into open sky.
No music.
No enemy fighters.
No sign that anyone aboard is about to become historically famous.
Old 666 left New Guinea and headed toward the Solomon Islands.
The ocean beneath them offered no indication of the battle ahead.
The four engines settled into their long-distance rhythm.
Crewmen monitored fuel.
The navigator kept the aircraft on course.
The gunners watched sectors mostly containing empty sky.
The photographic equipment had to be ready by the time they reached the target area.
A mission of this distance created hours of anticipation.
A man can remain tense only so long before the body searches for routine.
Some crewmen probably focused deliberately on tasks.
Check ammunition.
Check oxygen.
Check interphone.
Check the gun.
Check it again.
Small procedures prevent the mind from spending every minute imagining what might happen later.
The aircraft continued north and east.
Bougainville grew closer.
Open Ocean Was Safer Than Enemy Territory but Not Safe
A B-17 could fail mechanically without Japanese help.
Four engines offered redundancy.
They also offered four collections of moving parts capable of malfunctioning.
Fuel management required care.
Navigation mattered constantly.
Clouds could hide islands and make course correction difficult.
An emergency landing in open ocean was survivable sometimes, but nobody wanted to test the odds hundreds of miles from friendly bases.
The crew therefore spent the outbound flight preserving the aircraft for the moment when Japanese fighters might begin damaging it.
That is another burden of long-range combat.
A machine must first survive itself before it can survive the enemy.
Old 666 reached the target area functioning.
The hard part was about to begin.
Buka and Bougainville Appeared Beneath Them
Land after hours over water changes the atmosphere inside an aircraft.
The navigator's abstract coordinates become visible terrain.
Coastline appears.
Mountains and jungle take shape.
Airfields become identifiable.
The crew now knows enemy guns and fighters may be near.
The photographic run required Zeamer to establish altitude and heading.
The cameras needed proper overlap.
The navigator and photographic specialist needed exact location.
Every man understood what straight flight over a Japanese-held area meant.
They also understood that this was why they had come.
Old 666 steadied.
Then somebody saw fighters moving below.
At First They Were Tiny Shapes
That made them almost worse.
A Japanese fighter on the ground is only potential danger.
An aircraft lifting from the runway becomes a countdown.
The men aboard Old 666 could watch that countdown developing.
One fighter accelerated.
Then another.
More followed.
The Japanese were not scrambling randomly.
They had detected the American aircraft.
They knew a lone heavy bomber was overhead.
The fighters began climbing.
The number increased until the crew estimated approximately twenty aircraft were involved.
This was not one opportunistic interceptor.
It was a coordinated defense.
Old 666 had altitude.
The Japanese had numbers.
Altitude could buy time.
It could not cancel what would happen once the fighters climbed high enough.
Zeamer faced the decision every man aboard had known might come.