“He’s Still Attacking!” — Japanese Radios Panicked as the Engagement Unfolded

The Audacity of Major William A. Shomo: A P-51 Mustang’s Heroic Stand Over Luzon

February 1945, Northern Italy. A single P-51D Mustang bore down on 13 Japanese aircraft. The Packard Merlin engine screamed at full military power, airspeed climbing past 350 mph. Ammunition counters showed 1,800 rounds remaining across six guns. The odds were simple arithmetic: one American fighter, one wingman somewhere behind, 12 enemy fighters, and a twin-engine bomber ahead. The mathematics of survival had already failed.

The morning of January 11th, 1945, carried the weight of routine over Luzon’s northern mountains. Fog clung to the valleys below, pooling between ridge lines like cotton pressed into the creases of the earth. Above the weather, the sky opened into a particular shade of Pacific blue that combat pilots learned to distrust. Clear air meant visibility; visibility meant being seen.

Major William A. Shomo had departed Lingayen airfield shortly after dawn, leading a two-ship reconnaissance patrol into territory the Fifth Air Force had marked as contested. His wingman, Lieutenant Paul Lipkcom, flew a loose combat spread about 300 yards to his right and slightly behind. The mission was observation. The standing orders were explicit: reconnaissance pilots were to locate, identify, and report. Engagement was authorized only in self-defense or against targets of opportunity that posed minimal risk.

A lone P-51 possessed neither the ammunition depth nor the tactical support to wage sustained combat against organized resistance. Shomo understood these parameters. He had flown enough missions to know that the men who survived this war were the ones who recognized the difference between opportunity and trap.

The Encounter

At approximately 0840 local time, his scan pattern caught movement against the mountain backdrop to the north. The formation emerged from a valley mouth like a procession, climbing slowly toward cruising altitude. The silhouettes resolved in sequence: a twin-engine aircraft at the center, its distinctive greenhouse nose and twin rudders marking it as a Mitsubishi Ki-57 transport or possibly a Ki-21 bomber pressed into VIP service. Arranged around it in a protective screen flew 11 single-engine fighters, their fixed landing gear and radial engine cowlings identifying them as Ki-43 Hayabusas—the aircraft American pilots called “Oscars.” One additional fighter flew close escort directly alongside the transport.

Shomo’s fuel state showed adequate reserves for the planned mission profile, but combat maneuvering consumed fuel at three to four times the cruise rate. His ammunition load was full: 1,800 rounds of .50 caliber distributed across six wing-mounted M2 Browning machine guns. His aircraft carried no bombs, no rockets—just bullets and fuel and the Packard-built Merlin engine turning at 2,800 revolutions per minute.

The Japanese formation had not yet detected the two American fighters. They flew in a loose defensive arrangement, the transport at the center, the escorts layered above and below in a pattern designed more for visibility than for rapid response. Their altitude was slightly below Shomo’s, perhaps a thousand feet beneath his current position. This was the moment where doctrine became personal.

The reconnaissance mission had already succeeded. The patrol had located a significant enemy formation operating in daylight over contested airspace. The appropriate action was to mark the position, note the heading, and radio the contact report back to Lingayen for potential interception by a properly sized fighter element. Two P-51s against 13 aircraft was not a proper response. But doctrine also recognized something that the tables and charts could not fully capture. The P-51D possessed advantages that transcended numerical inferiority.

It was faster than the Ki-43 at nearly every altitude. Its dive performance exceeded anything the Japanese fighter could match. Its six .50 caliber guns threw more weight of fire than the twin machine guns or single 20 mm cannon that armed the Oscar. And there was one advantage that mattered more than any performance figure: the Japanese formation was unaware. Surprise in aerial combat functioned as a force multiplier with no theoretical ceiling. A fighter pilot who achieved complete surprise against an enemy formation could engage, inflict damage, and disengage before coordinated defense became possible. The first pass was essentially free.

The question was whether a single pass could justify the risk of what came after. Shomo’s thumb moved to the gun switch.

A Calculated Decision

William Arthur Shomo was not the kind of pilot who attracted attention before he climbed into a cockpit. Born in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, in 1918, he carried the unassuming manner of the industrial towns that lined the Allegheny foothills. His father worked, his mother kept house. The family attended church and followed the Pirates, understanding that ambition in that time and place meant steady work and a house that stayed warm in winter.

Flying was not part of the expected trajectory. But something in Shomo responded to the idea of altitude, mechanical precision, and problems that could be solved through calculation and nerve. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1941, before Pearl Harbor transformed aviation from peacetime hobby into industrial necessity. His aptitude tests showed strong spatial reasoning, steady nerves under simulated stress, and an unusual capacity for what the evaluators called procedural retention—the ability to internalize complex sequences until they became automatic.

He was not fast or flashy. Instructors noted that he flew precisely without the dramatic inputs that marked pilots who trusted instinct over training. His gunnery scores were above average, but not exceptional. His formation flying was textbook. His navigation was flawless. He graduated without honors and was assigned to P-47 Thunderbolts, the heaviest single-engine aircraft of the war.

The P-51 was not originally a Pacific fighter. Its design emerged from British requirements and American engineering to create an aircraft optimized for long escort missions over Europe. But the same qualities that made it effective against the Luftwaffe transferred readily to Pacific conditions: range, speed, altitude performance, and firepower. The Mustang could go where other American fighters could not—stay longer, fight harder, and return.

The Tactical Shift

On the morning of January 11th, Shomo carried no special premonition. His mission was reconnaissance. His orders were observation. His expectation was a flight through contested airspace, a survey of enemy positions, and a return to Lingayen with photographs that would help planners understand what the Japanese were doing in the mountains of northern Luzon. The encounter that followed would transform his military record and earn him the highest decoration his nation could bestow.

The problem facing the Fifth Army near Vinola was not new. It was the oldest problem in modern war: how to kill an enemy you cannot see. The German gunners had done everything right. Their positions were cited on reverse slopes, invisible from ground observation posts. Camouflage netting broke up the angular lines of the howitzers. Firing positions were separated by hundreds of yards, making counter-battery fire ineffective even when spotters could estimate location.

Air strikes had been attempted for five days. Medium bombers flew through overcast and dropped on map coordinates. Fighters dove through gaps in the clouds and pickled ordinance at estimated positions. Post-strike reconnaissance showed cratered hillsides and intact gun emplacements. The infantry was losing men every hour. Medics could not move forward. Ammunition resupply was impossible. The attack had stalled, not for lack of courage, but for lack of precision.

Knight understood the calculus. He also understood that doctrine was a statistical model, not a law of physics. The model assumed average pilot skill, average target selection, and average commitment. He did not consider himself exceptional. He considered himself willing to test the variables no one else would touch.

The opportunity came on January 11th. The Japanese formation had been spotted, and Shomo knew the stakes. He pushed the throttle forward, the Merlin’s note changing deeper, more urgent. The P-51’s nose dropped slightly as he converted altitude into speed, trading the energy stored in height for the kinetic energy that would carry him into the enemy formation.

The Engagement

Shomo’s throttle advanced to full military power. The P-51’s nose dropped further, converting the approach into a diving attack that would carry maximum energy. The Japanese formation continued climbing, unaware of the American attack. At 600 yards, Shomo’s gun sight tracked toward the transport. He squeezed the trigger. The .50 caliber Brownings erupted simultaneously, their combined rate of fire producing a sustained roar that filled the cockpit with vibration and sound.

Tracer rounds converged on the target, and the transport pilot initiated an evasive maneuver too late. Fire engulfed the port wing, and the aircraft banked left, attempting to dive away from the attack, but the damage was catastrophic. Shomo pulled up and right, breaking off the attack before collision became a risk. The transport was finished, and fire engulfed it as it crashed into the mountains below.

But the engagement had just begun. Eleven fighters remained, and they had witnessed the destruction of their principal. Shomo completed his climbing turn and reversed, diving back toward the formation from a direction the climbing Japanese fighters could not easily counter. A Ki-43 that had separated from the main group crossed his gun sight at approximately 400 yards. Shomo fired a burst of approximately 200 rounds.

The fighter rolled inverted, smoke pouring from the radial engine, and began a steep descent that indicated total loss of control. Second kill, perhaps 20 seconds since the engagement began. The lead Japanese fighter had witnessed his wingman’s destruction and abandoned its attack run on Lipkcom. Shomo pulled up from the valley, climbing to regain altitude and situational awareness.

The Aftermath

Knight returned to base, his aircraft riddled with holes and his mission a resounding success. The Medal of Honor citation for Major William A. Shomo reads with the procedural restraint of official military documentation. It references the date, the location, the approximate engagement circumstances, and the numerical disparity between the two American aircraft and the 13-ship Japanese formation.

The citation describes Shomo’s decision to attack despite the odds and credits him with destroying seven enemy aircraft in a single engagement. The official record characterizes this as extraordinary heroism in aerial combat. The pilot who climbed out of that P-51D Mustang at Lingayen airfield knew only that he had survived a situation that should have killed him.

He had attacked when doctrine said to evade, continued when mathematics said to stop, and pressed his advantage until the formation that outnumbered him ceased to exist as a fighting force. The mountains of Luzon kept the wreckage of that January morning. The pilot who created that wreckage lived into peacetime, into a life measured by quieter achievements than the destruction of enemy aircraft.

The legacy of Major William A. Shomo is a testament to the calculated audacity that defines true heroism in combat. His story reminds us that courage is not merely the absence of fear but the presence of resolve in the face of overwhelming odds. In the skies above Luzon, one man proved that the mathematics of survival could be rewritten, and in doing so, he changed the course of aerial combat forever.