The quiet desolation of Mog Mog was soon to be broken as naval and air forces gathered.
The U.S. Navy also sent a task force consisting of two light cruisers, a destroyer, three torpedo boats, a submarine, a troopship loaded with Marines and a garbage scow. While this was not much, it swelled the population of the tiny Pacific outpost.
The
U.S.S. Bacon soon arrived on station and launched its squadron of U.S.M.C. Tomcats, keeping four in reserve for defense and scouting.
The next day, the Japanese invaders appeared over the horizon and the battle was joined. Fortunately for the Marine pilots, the Japanese were scraping the bottom of the barrel too. Instead of facing the far superior Zero, they would fight the obsolescent, fixed-gear Nakajima Ki-27 Nate. This put them on roughly equal terms, but a radical new aerobatic maneuver would win the skies for the Americans.
While the Fletch Retch was hard on pilots' breakfast, lunch and dinner (not to mention cockpits and flight suits), it caused the Japanese Nates to fall flaming in droves before the Tomcats' guns. Many famous U.S.M.C. aces would be born that day in what would become known as the "Mog Mog Massacre".
The Japanese threat in the air was eliminated by noon the following day and the U.S. submarine
Flounder scored two torpedo hits on the enemy carrier
Sashimi. To add insult to injury, the garbage scow
U.S.S. Septic rammed the Japanese troopship and sank it. The Americans owned the skies and held on to Mog Mog while the enemy retreated to lick its wounds. U.S. forces celebrated their victory which would later be seen as a turning point in the war.
Once the war ended however, the tiny island of Mog Mog was abandoned and little trace of the epic battle can be seen today.
Brian da Basher
