Rex T. Barber was an Oregon State grad, class of 1940. Like almost all Oregon State grads at the time, Barber was commissioned in the Army, beginning in September 1940. Unlike Carl in your other post, Barber stayed in the Army.
Carl left Guadalcanal in October 1942, and Barber was one of the pilots who was subsequently stationed in Guadalcanal in December. Barber subsequently was transferred to the 339th squadron, flying an iconic P-38 Lightning.
On December 28, 1942, Barber was able to destroy a Nell Bomber, which was coming into land at Munda Airfield, with his Airacobra with an extra tank.
On January 1, 1943, Japan changed their codes, leaving Americans in the dark as to their intentions. At the end of January, Japan launched Operation Ke, an attempt to withdraw the final 14,000 Japanese troops (out of approximately 36,000 at one point) from Gaudalcanal. The Japanese did so in three primary runs over an eight day period, evacuating 10,652 Japanese from the island. The Japanese intended to try and concentrate on New Guinea. However, by February 16, 1943, the Allies had begun to be able to decrypt the new Japanese Code. The Allies learned that the Japanese were going to try and land 6,900 soldiers on New Guinea to try and take the island in March. The Allies were able to flood the area with planes and torpedo boats and won the subsequent Battle of Bismarck Sea, stopping 4,700 of the 6,900 soldiers from landing in New Guinea and killing or capturing most of the rest.
On March 29, 1943, Barber took off with seven other P-38s and eight Corsairs to attack a Japanese Seaplane Base in Shortland Harbor. Due to poor weather, only five P-38s and one Corsair were able to make the rendezvous point. At dawn, the six planes attacked the Seaplane Base at Shortland Harbor and destroyed eight floatplanes. Departing, they spotted Subchaser CH-28 East of Shortland Island and damaged the ship, knocking it out of action until May 1943. As part of the attack, Barber accidentally damaged the left outer wing of his P-38 by colliding with the radio mast of CH-28. Barber
In response to the loss at Bismarck Sea and the raid on the Shortlands, Japan concentrated as many planes as possible in the airfields North of Guadalcanal, primarily by draining flight crews from the Hiyo, Junyo, Zuiho, and Zuikaku. They managed to get together 110 Zeroes and 67 Val Dive Bombers and launched them on April 7, 1943. This was something of a surprise to the Allies, who were only able to cobble together 76 fighters in response. One of the 76 pilots was Barber. To add to the historicity of the situation, one of the boats below was LST-449. On board was John F. Kennedy. LST-449 along with another approximately 35 Allied ships in the area were some of the primary targets of the I-Go attack along with bombers on Guadalcanal. LST-449 shot down at least one Val Dive Bomber. John F. Kennedy may have helped with transporting some shells for one of the guns on board of LST-449, during the battle. LST-449 was damaged from a near miss (multiple bombs landed less than 75 feet from LST-449), and the destroyer leading LST-449, the Aaron Ward, was sunk. Two other Allied ships (the HMNZS Moa and the USS Kanawha) were also sunk.
The April 7th attack was the first of four primary attacks of Operation I-Go, which lasted about a week. The other three were primarily directed at New Guinea. Kennedy was travelling to Guadalcanal to take over command of PT-109, but the attack caused LST-449 to set back out to sea for an additional five days to make sure that no further follow-up attacks were imminent. Kennedy took command of PT-109 less than two weeks later.
Operation I-Go's last attack was on April 14th. On that day, Admiral Yamamoto planned to fly to Balalae Southeast of Rabaul as part of a Goodwill Tour to celebrate the successful I-Go operation. The American Army intercepted the plans for the flight and calculated that modified P-38s (with an extra fuel tank that would be dropped shortly before arriving at Balalee) could travel the 1,000 miles to intercept the flight from Guadalcanal. The Army got 18 P-38s together and assigned four to serve as the "killer" P-38s. Barber was chosen as one of the four "killer" P-38 pilots. Two of the "killer" P-38s did not make it to Balalae and were replaced by the other 14 support P-38s on the day of the attack. Admiral Yamamoto was on a Betty Bomber. There was a second Betty Bomber with Vice Admiral Ugaki and six Zeroes to defend the two Betties. At Balalae, Barber shot down Yamamoto's Betty by himself and then shot down Ugaki's Betty after the right engine had been crippled by Besby Holmes' P-38. Yamamoto's Betty crashed into the jungle with no survivors. Ugaki's Betty crashed into the sea, and Ugaki and two others survived the attack. Holmes may have also damaged one Zero. After taking down the two Betties, the five remaining Zeroes closed on the four "killer" P-38s, shooting down Raymond K. Hine's P-38. Barber was able to limp back to Guadalcanal having taken 104 hits. (Although some of the 104 "hits" were likely the result of damage sustained by the break-up of Ugaki's plane.) Operation Vengeance was the longest successful interception of the kind by the Americans during World War II.
After Operation Vengeance, the highest-ranking officer, Captain Thomas G. Lanphier, Jr., took credit for two kills, a Betty and a Zero. Barber took credit for 1.5 kills, and Holmes took credit for 0.5 kills and damage to a Zero. The Army assumed that there were three Betties based on the reports from the three surviving "killer" pilots, but it became clear that this was untrue as the war progressed. Lanphier's claims were contradicted by both Barber and Holmes. One of the surviving Japanese Zero pilots also contradicted Lanphier's account after World War II ended. Holmes did not make it all the way back to Guadalcanal and was escorted back by Lieutenant Canning. Canning wrote that Lanphier's account of making a 180-degree turn in 30 seconds was physically impossible. A later investigation of the jungle crash site also found no evidence of damage from the right of the plane, like Lanphier claimed, but only found damage from the rear, consistent with Barber's account. Despite the foregoing, the Air Force has never altered splitting credit for the downing of Yamamoto's Betty between Barber and Lanphier.
Barber earned a Navy Cross for his two half-kills in Operation Vengeance.
Barber's tour in the Guadalcanal region ended in June 1943. Barber ran 110 missions out of Guadalcanal in his approximately half-year there. Barber asked to be reassigned to front line duty. After a couple of months, he was reassigned to China.
Japan had invaded Northern China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937.
Shanghai, the largest city in China, had been agreed to be an International City in 1922, during a time of extreme Chinese weakness. Any of the nine signatories, including China and Japan, could bring troops in or out of the city. Portions of Shanghai were not technically part of China as a result. Japan had won additional concessions after a five-week invasion of Shanghai in 1932 after a Japanese monk had been killed. China began to bring in Chinese troops into Shanghai, and Japan responded by increasing the number of Japanese troops in Shanghai. The other seven nations attempted to mediate the dispute, but shots were fired in August 13, 1937, which led to a full-scale Japanese Invasion of the Chinese parts of Shanghai. Shanghai fell after 3½ months.
After Shanghai fell, Japan invaded up the Yangtze River to the Chinese Republican Capital of Nanjing (often Romanized to Nanking), which fell the next month. After pausing to focus on uniting the Nanjing-Shanghai Invasion with the Northern Invasion, Japan then invaded up the Yangtze River to Wuhan, the new Chinese Republican Capital and the second-largest city in China. The Invasion of Wuhan took 4½ months with Japan using poison gas approximately 375 times. On the way to Wuhan, Japan attacked Jiujiang (formerly Kiankiang) on July 21, 1938, with Jiujiang falling on July 26, 1938. Jiujiang was approximately 60 miles to the Southeast of Wuhan on the Yangtze. China looked like they may be able to hold Wuhan, but Japan was able to take Guangzhou in the interim, which cut off most foreign aid to Wuhan from Kowloon. Guangzhou's fall led to China evacuating the capital and most troops, supplies, and industrial equipment to other areas of China, including, in particular, the new Chinese Republican Capital of Chongqing.
Chongqing was supplied from the Southwest by Burma and the Southeast by Changsha and French Indochina. Japan launched an invasion of Changsha in 1939. Japan then invaded French Indochina in July 1941. It followed that with a Second Invasion of Changsha, which resulted in a more prolonged but similar result to the First Invasion. During the joint Japanese-Thai Invasion of Burma in December 1941, Japan tried a third time to take Changsha with similar results to the first two invasions.
The situation in China was largely static after May 1942, due to Japan's concentration with first taking and then holding gains in the Pacific Ocean.
After the situation in the Pacific Ocean degraded, mainly the loss of the Gilberts and increasingly compromised shipping lines to the West, the Japanese Army determined that they had to connect Kaifeng to Wuhan (which they had captured independently in 1938) and then proceed South from Wuhan to the captured areas of Southern China near the border with French Indochina. The Japanese named this Operation Operation Ichigo. The first part of Operation Ichigo, to connect Kaifeng to Wuhan was Codenamed Kogo.
It was in this situation that Barber flew to China in 1943. On April 19, 1944, Japan initiated the Kogo portion of Operation Ichigo. 60,000-70,000 Japanese troops simultaneously attacked West and then South from Kaifeng and North from Wuhan. The two independent commands were able to link up after 38 days, managing to destroy the Chinese Army of 300,000 that opposed them.
During Kogo, Barber was attacking the Japanese but was shot down and bailed out near Jiujiang. Jiujiang had been held by Japan since July 26, 1938. Despite the foregoing, Chinese partisans treated Barber and helped him to escape out of the ongoing Japanese offensive. Barber was able to make his way back to Allied-control China on July 7, 1944. Barber flew 29 missions in China.
After World War II concluded, Barber was a test pilot for the P-80 Shooting Star, the United States' first operational jet fighter.
Colonel Barber flew jets in the Korean War.
Barber retired after 20 years in the Army and Air Force in 1961. Barber died on July 26, 2001, in Terrebonne, Oregon, just North of Redmond, and was buried in a rather modest grave with two P-38s on it in Redmond. The Highway 97 Bridge over the Crooked River North of Terrebonne was renamed the Rex T. Barber Veterans Memorial Bridge in 2003.
