Japanese Couldn’t Believe One P-61 Was Hunting Them — Until 4 Bombers Disappeared in 80 Minutes

At 11:40 p.m., the sky over the Philippine Sea was so dark it felt solid—like a wall you could crash into and die without ever seeing it.

Inside that darkness, Major Carol C. Smith sat hunched in the narrow cockpit of his P-61 Black Widow, listening to the low, steady growl of two Pratt & Whitney engines and the calm, measured voice of his radar operator behind him. Below, twenty thousand American engineers slept in canvas tents. Above, twelve Japanese bombers were already moving south, heavy with explosives, hunting the newborn American airfields at Muro.

If even a few of them got through, men would die. The invasion of Lingayen Gulf would stall. The war would stretch longer. Smith understood the math with terrifying clarity.

And he was alone.

For two weeks, the Japanese had attacked Muro every single night—334 air raid alerts in just fourteen days. Conventional bombers. Kamikazes. Anything that could fly and carry explosives. They knew those airfields were the key. If American fighters could operate from Muro, the entire invasion force would be protected.

The 418th Night Fighter Squadron had arrived only three days earlier. Their P-61s were new, untested in the Pacific. Tonight, one aircraft—one pilot and one radar operator—stood between the bombers and catastrophe.

Carol Smith was twenty-six years old. Forty-three combat missions. Four confirmed kills. He had trained for this moment for eighteen months, learning to fight in a world without horizons, without stars, without mercy. Night combat was the most dangerous form of aerial warfare. No visual references. No second chances. One mistake meant death.

At 23:42, Lieutenant Philip Porter’s voice crackled through the intercom.

“Multiple contacts. Four on scope. Heading south.”

Smith’s jaw tightened. Four bombers separated by miles of black sky. Twelve total inbound. Fuel for maybe three hours. Ammunition for a handful of attacks. The brutal truth was unavoidable: even a perfect pilot could not stop them all.

Unless he broke the rules.

Smith pushed the throttles forward. The Black Widow surged into the darkness, climbing hard. Porter’s hands danced over the glowing radar scopes, tracking invisible shapes that believed the night made them untouchable. The Japanese had no tail warning radar. No defense against what they could not see.

The first target appeared as a steady blip on Smith’s own radar—two miles out, then one. At five hundred yards, a shadow finally materialized against the clouds: a Mitsubishi G4M “Betty,” its engines glowing faint orange.

Smith slid beneath it, unseen. He centered the bomber in his gunsight.

At 350 yards, he fired.

Four 20mm cannons erupted at once. Forty-eight shells tore into the Betty’s wing. Fuel ignited instantly. The bomber rolled, burning, and plunged into the sea. It hit the water at 23:57, lighting the clouds below like a funeral pyre.

One bomber down.

Smith checked his fuel. Fifteen percent gone already.

Porter was already calling the next vector.

The second bomber was twenty-three miles away—five precious minutes closer to the airfields with every passing second. Smith pushed the engines harder, burning fuel he could not afford to lose. The radar blip grew stronger. Another Betty, lower this time, skimming the cloud layer.

Again, Smith approached from below and behind. Again, the bomber crew flew straight and level, unaware death was sliding up behind them in the dark.

Two seconds of cannon fire.

Both engines ignited. The bomber nosed over and vanished into the ocean at 00:19.

Two bombers down. Fuel at forty-two percent.

Porter’s voice was steady, but the tension was unmistakable now. Two more contacts. One high. One low. Eight miles apart.

Smith made a choice that could doom everything.

He went high.

The third aircraft was faster, maneuvering aggressively. This was no Betty—it was a Nakajima Ki-49 “Helen,” with better guns and a tail gunner who knew his job. As Smith closed in, tracer fire suddenly streaked past the cockpit.

They had seen him.

Smith adjusted instantly, attacking from the bomber’s blind belly. At 375 yards, he fired a longer burst—seventy-two shells. The Helen’s engine exploded. The aircraft rolled inverted, spinning, burning, and slammed into the sea at 00:29.

Three bombers destroyed.

Fuel: twenty-eight percent.

Most pilots would have turned back.

Smith did not.

The fourth bomber—the one he had bypassed earlier—was now dangerously close to Muro. Searchlights were already sweeping the sky. Anti-aircraft crews were waiting, fingers tight on triggers.

Smith dove, conserving fuel, positioning above the target. Another Betty. Flying straight toward its objective, as if nothing could stop it.

Smith had one chance.

At 00:34, he fired.

The shells tore through the bomber’s fuselage. The wing separated completely. The aircraft disintegrated in flame and hit the water one minute later.

Four bombers destroyed in fifty-five minutes.

The remaining Japanese aircraft turned back.

The airfields were safe.

Smith turned for home.

Fuel: twenty-one percent.

Then Porter spoke again.

“New contact. Between us and base.”

Smith closed his eyes for half a second. If it was another bomber and he let it through, everything he had done would be stained with blood. He turned back toward the contact.

It wasn’t a bomber.

It was a Nakajima Ki-84 “Frank”—one of Japan’s best fighters. Faster than the P-61. More agile. Deadly in daylight.

But this wasn’t daylight.

Smith crept in behind it, invisible. At 300 yards, with fuel at seventeen percent, he fired his longest burst of the night.

The Frank’s engine erupted in flame. The pilot bailed out at 3,000 feet. The fighter hit the sea at 00:46.

Five kills.

Smith turned south again.

Fuel: fifteen percent.

Then the unthinkable happened.

As he descended toward Maguire Field, the runway lights went out—every single one. Complete darkness. No horizon. No visual reference. Just instruments and instinct.

Diverting was impossible. He would run out of fuel over the ocean.

Smith decided to land blind.

Using the radar altimeter, compass headings, and pure nerve, he descended foot by foot. At 25 feet, he cut power.

The P-61 slammed onto the crushed coral runway at 00:59. The landing was brutal—but the gear held. The aircraft rolled to a stop with three minutes of fuel remaining.

Smith climbed out of the cockpit shaking—not from fear, but exhaustion.

Five intercepts. Five kills. One blind landing.

And he wasn’t done.

That afternoon, he would shoot down two more aircraft, bringing his total to seven kills in less than twenty-four hours—more than any American night fighter pilot would achieve in the entire war.

Then he went home.

No memoirs. No interviews. No fame.

Just a name in military records and a night when one aircraft hunted the darkness—and won.

Because in December 1944, over Muro, the night belonged to the Black Widow.