When 13 Japanese Planes Attacked One P-51 — This Rookie’s Response Stunned Command

Thirteen silhouettes emerged from the blinding glare of the tropical sun, like a funeral procession carved in steel and high-octane fuel. For William Shomo, a man who had spent his pre-war life preparing bodies for the quiet finality of the grave in Pittsburgh, the sight was not one of fear, but of a long-delayed, bloody destiny. He was a mortician by trade, a man of needles, chemicals, and silence, now strapped into a vibrating cockpit of an F-6D Mustang, hovering on the edge of an impossible slaughter. Two American planes against thirteen Japanese killers. It was a statistical suicide note written across the blue Philippine sky. In that moment, the cockpit didn’t feel like a seat of a fighter; it felt like an altar where the next six minutes would either sanctify him as a legend or erase him into a smear of oil and bone on the Luzon jungle floor. The odds were seven-to-one, a mathematical certainty of death that would make any rational pilot dive for the clouds. But Shomo was not a rational man that morning. He was a man who had waited sixteen months for a ghost to appear, and now that the sky was screaming with them, he wasn’t about to look away. Below him, his wingman, Paul Lipscomb, was a shadow against the green canopy, a silent partner in what was about to become the most concentrated display of aerial lethality in the history of the Pacific War. The air was thin, the tension was a physical weight in his chest, and as he gripped the stick, the “Flying Undertaker” prepared to open his most ambitious parlor. This wasn’t just a mission; it was an invitation to a massacre.

At 7:32 on the morning of January 11th, 1945, Captain William Shomo climbed into the cockpit of his F-6D Mustang at Muro Airstrip in the Philippines. The humidity was already beginning to rise, a thick, cloying blanket that smelled of salt water and aviation spirit. He watched with a practiced, stoic eye as the ground crew finished fueling his plane for what should have been another routine photo reconnaissance run over Northern Luzon. To the casual observer, he was just another pilot in a flight suit, but at twenty-six years old, Shomo carried the weight of two hundred and three combat missions and a single aerial victory. The Japanese still had an estimated three hundred fighters operating from airfields at Tuguegarao, Aparri, and Laoag in northern Luzon. These were not the hollow shells of a defeated air force; they were desperate, experienced, and lethal.

Shomo had been flying combat missions since early 1943, a lifetime in the world of fighter aviation. He had spent sixteen months in the 82nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, a period defined by the grinding, unglamorous reality of moving from airstrip to airstrip along the New Guinea coast and then to Morotai. It was a life of mud, mosquitoes, and the endless clicking of camera shutters. For sixteen months, he had photographed enemy positions and strafed ground targets, always on the periphery of the “real” war. He had flown in obsolete P-39 Airacobras and P-40 Warhawks, aircraft that were too short-ranged to reach the true heart of the Japanese defensive sectors where the fighters operated in strength.

While the P-38 and P-47 squadrons chased the glory and the status of the aces, Shomo took photos of empty beaches and wrecked supply dumps. Before the war, he had worked as an undertaker in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had attended the Cincinnati College of Embalming and the Pittsburgh School of Embalming. He knew the intimate architecture of death—how to prepare bodies for burial, how to mask the scent of decay, how to present the finality of life with dignity. Now, he was supposed to take pictures while other pilots became fighter aces. It was a cruel irony for a man who knew more about the grave than most.

In December of 1944, the tide finally turned for the 82nd. The squadron received F-6D Mustangs, the armed photo reconnaissance versions of the legendary P-51. They had longer range, better speed, and most importantly, the possibility of finally encountering enemy aircraft. On December 24th, Shomo took command of the squadron and moved it to Muro to support MacArthur’s landing at Lingayen Gulf. The change in equipment felt like a change in soul.

He led his first combat mission in the new Mustang on January 9th, a low-level reconnaissance run to determine Japanese air strength in northern Luzon. As they approached the airfield at Tuguegarao, Shomo spotted something he had never seen during all his months of combat flying: an enemy aircraft. It was a Val dive bomber turning onto final approach to land.

Shomo closed to firing range, his thumb hovering over the trigger. Six .50 caliber machine guns roared to life. A single, focused burst was all it took. The Val went down in flames, a funeral pyre on the edge of the runway. It was his first aerial victory. After two hundred and two missions, after sixteen months of waiting, he had finally shot one down—a Val bomber, caught while it was most vulnerable.

Twenty-four hours later, Shomo was airborne again. It was the same mission: check the Japanese airfields at Tuguegarao, Aparri, and Laoag. Take the photos. Strafe any targets of opportunity. His wingman for the day was Lieutenant Paul Lipscomb. Two F-6D Mustangs heading north on the deck, their silver skins glinting against the deep green of the Philippine landscape.

They were flying at five hundred feet, staying below the radar coverage that scanned the horizons. This was standard procedure for photo reconnaissance missions, a dangerous dance with the treetops to avoid detection. The  weather was clear, the visibility unlimited. It was a perfect day for photography, but it was also perfect for spotting enemy aircraft.

At approximately 0900 hours, Shomo looked up. Two thousand feet above them, flying south and coming directly toward them, was a formation of Japanese aircraft. Shomo counted them with the cold precision of a man counting caskets. Twelve fighters. All Kawasaki Ki-61 Tonys, except for one—a Nakajima Ki-44 Tojo. Thirteen fighters total.

But they weren’t just fighters. They were escorting something. Nestled in the center of the formation was a twin-engine bomber, a Mitsubishi G4M Betty. Thirteen Japanese aircraft versus two American Mustangs.

The smart move, the move taught in every tactical manual, was to stay low. Stay undetected. Let them pass. Complete the photo mission and go home. Nobody would question that decision. Shomo had waited sixteen months for this. Yesterday, he got one kill—a bomber caught landing. To him, that was not fighter combat; that was target practice. Now he had thirteen enemy aircraft two thousand feet above him. This was real combat. Real odds. This was what he had joined the Army Air Forces to do.

Shomo keyed his radio, his voice steady.

“We’re attacking. Stay on me.”

Lipscomb didn’t hesitate.

“Roger that, Lead.”

Shomo pulled his Mustang into a climbing turn, an Immelmann maneuver that sent him up and over, trading airspeed for altitude and position. Lipscomb stayed glued to his wing. The Japanese formation continued south, maintaining a steady course and a steady altitude. They had not seen the two Mustangs climbing like predators from the shadows below.

Shomo completed the Immelmann and rolled out directly behind the enemy formation. The separation was less than forty yards. It was point-blank range. The Japanese pilots still had not reacted. In the strange, distorted logic of the air, they likely thought the two Mustangs were friendly fighters joining the formation. Some of the Tony pilots even opened their canopies and waved. One pilot stood up in his cockpit and waved his arm, a gesture of comradeship a second before the end.

Shomo opened fire.

The leader of the trailing element exploded first. Shomo’s six .50 caliber guns, firing convergent patterns at less than forty yards, were not just weapons—they were industrial saws. The Tony disintegrated in midair, turning from a machine into a cloud of tumbling wing sections and fuselage fragments. Shomo shifted his aim to the wingman. Another burst. The second Tony caught fire and fell away, a streak of orange against the blue.

Two kills in the first three seconds.

The Japanese formation broke into madness. The pilots finally realized they were under attack. Some tried to turn into the threat, some tried to dive away into the safety of the lower altitudes, and some simply froze in the cockpit. The neat, disciplined formation dissolved into chaos.

Shomo attacked the second element from the left side. He closed to minimum range, the heat from the enemy’s engine almost visible through his windscreen. He fired. The third Tony exploded and fell, leaving nothing but flames and smoke to mark where a man had been flying moments before.

Three kills in approximately ten seconds.

The remaining Japanese pilots were desperate to form a counterattack, trying to use their overwhelming numerical advantage to trap the two Mustangs. Shomo did not give them the luxury of time. He moved to the opposite side of the formation, his Mustang a silver blur. He hit a fourth Tony. It exploded and dropped out of the sky like a stone.

Four fighters down.

The Betty bomber was trying to escape, its pilot diving away, losing altitude in a frantic attempt to get low where the terrain might offer some protection. Two Tony fighters stayed with it, an escort duty that was as honorable as it was futile. They protected the bomber even while their entire world was being destroyed around them.

Shomo rolled his Mustang inverted and pulled through a split-S maneuver. He dived below the bomber, coming up underneath its massive belly. The Betty’s underside was unprotected; there was no defensive armament pointing straight down. Shomo fired a burst into the fuselage. The bomber caught fire immediately, the fuel lines rupturing in a spectacular spray of flame. The pilot was clearly trying to control the burning aircraft, trying to line up for a crash landing in a field below.

Fifth kill: the bomber.

Shomo pulled up in a tight vertical spiral to regain the altitude he had traded for the kill. As he climbed, he realized the Nakajima Tojo had locked onto his tail. The Japanese pilot was skilled, firing tracer rounds that passed uncomfortably close to Shomo’s canopy. The Tojo was a fast interceptor, a dangerous opponent with a high climb rate.

Shomo kept the spiral tight, pushing the Mustang to its limits. He knew his aircraft could out-turn the Tojo at low speeds. The Japanese pilot kept firing, trying to get lead on the spiraling American. But the Tojo began to lose airspeed, its nose dropping as it struggled to maintain the turn. The fighter stalled and slipped away, disappearing into a cloud layer below.

Below him, the Betty exploded. The attempted crash landing had failed. The bomber erupted in a massive fireball as it hit the ground. Shomo was so close that his Mustang lurched from the blast wave. Debris from the Betty—bits of aluminum and burning fabric—pelted his aircraft. Small impacts rattled along his fuselage and wings.

The two Tony escorts that had stayed with the bomber broke away, flying low and flat out, trying to escape. Shomo rolled into a dive, his eyes locked on their silhouettes. They were on the deck now, less than three hundred feet above the trees. Shomo caught the first one. A short, surgical burst sent it crashing in flames.

Sixth kill.

The second Tony was still running, weaving through the terrain. Shomo dived another hundred feet, nearly at ground level. He pulled lead and fired. The seventh Tony went down burning.

Seven kills. Six minutes of combat.

The sky was suddenly clear, except for the columns of black smoke rising from the burning wreckage on the ground and Lipscomb’s Mustang circling higher up. Shomo looked around, his breathing heavy in his mask. He checked his fuel and his ammunition. He still had rounds left; he still had enough fuel to make it home.

Lipscomb had been fighting his own battle during those six minutes. While Shomo had been carving through the formation, Lipscomb had engaged the other Japanese fighters, keeping them off Shomo’s tail. Now, Shomo could see three more smoke columns on the ground. Lipscomb had shot down three Tonys.

Ten Japanese aircraft destroyed total. Three had escaped into the clouds. Two American Mustangs against thirteen Japanese aircraft. Ten kills. No losses.

Shomo turned south, his wings level. Lipscomb formed up on his wing, the two silver planes flying in a silence that felt heavy after the roar of the guns. The flight back to Muro would take approximately forty minutes. Shomo had time to think about what had just happened.

Seven aerial victories in one mission. That made him an ace. More than an ace. Most pilots spent months or years accumulating five kills. Shomo had done it in six minutes. After waiting sixteen months for the opportunity, the dam had broken.

The ground crews at Muro knew the tradition. When a pilot scored an aerial victory, he celebrated with a barrel roll over the airfield before landing—a victory roll. One roll for each kill.

Shomo realized he was going to need seven rolls. He thought to himself that the brass were going to think he had lost his mind. Nobody got seven kills in one mission. Nobody would believe it until they saw the film. He still had forty minutes to figure out how to explain what had just happened over northern Luzon.

Shomo crossed the coastline at Lingayen Gulf at 10:47. Muro Airstrip was twenty minutes ahead. He used the flight time to review the combat in his mind. Every maneuver, every shot, every kill. The story had to be accurate; it had to be believable. Seven aerial victories in one mission sounded like a tall tale from a frantic rookie, not the report of a squadron commander.

He could see the airstrip now: the two runways, the rows of aircraft, the support buildings, and the 82nd Reconnaissance Squadron operations tent. The ground crews were already there, waiting. They always waited when missions were overdue or when they knew their pilots were returning from a hot zone.

Shomo keyed his radio and called the tower.

“Tower, this is Snooks Five. Two F-6D Mustangs inbound. No damage, no casualties. Requesting landing clearance. Also, mark ten enemy aircraft destroyed.”

There was a long, static-filled pause.

“Snooks Five, say again? Did you say ten?”

Shomo repeated himself, his voice devoid of emotion.

“Ten enemy aircraft destroyed. Seven by me, three by Lieutenant Lipscomb.”

Another pause followed. Then, the tower crackled back.

“Clear to land, Snooks Five. We’re watching.”

Shomo was not landing yet. He had seven barrel rolls to perform. He came in low over the field, the Mustang’s engine roaring as he pulled into the first victory roll. The aircraft rotated smoothly. One complete rotation. The ground crews were already gathering, shielding their eyes as they watched the silver bird.

He leveled out and climbed again. Second barrel roll. Clean and precise. The crowd on the ground was growing. Personnel were pouring out of tents and buildings.

Third roll. Fourth roll.

By now, the entire airstrip knew something impossible was happening. Nobody did four victory rolls. Three was exceptional. Four meant something legendary.

Fifth roll. Sixth roll.

Officers were coming out of the operations buildings—senior staff, colonels, and even a general. Everyone wanted to see who was doing six victory rolls and why.

Seventh roll.

Shomo completed it, leveled his wings, and entered the landing pattern. Lipscomb was still holding overhead, waiting his turn. He would do three rolls for his three kills. It was impressive by any standard, but it was overshadowed completely by the spectacle Shomo had just provided.

Shomo touched down at 11:09 local time. Two hours and twenty-seven minutes after takeoff. Six of those minutes had changed the course of his life. He taxied to the squadron area, shut down the engine, and opened the canopy.

The ground crew chief was already climbing onto the wing, his face a mask of shock. He pointed at the gun camera.

“Captain, what the hell happened out there?”

Shomo climbed out. His flight suit was soaked with sweat. The adrenaline was wearing off now, and he noticed his hands were shaking slightly—a normal reaction after the high-wire act of combat.

“We found them,” Shomo said simply.

The squadron intelligence officer arrived almost immediately. Captain Shomo needed to debrief. Every detail needed to be recorded while it was fresh. The gun camera film was rushed to the lab to be developed. The kills needed confirmation.

Shomo spent the next three hours in the debriefing room. He described the mission from takeoff to landing. The climb, the Immelmann turn, the first burst, each subsequent kill, the Tojo on his tail, the Betty exploding—it was all documented.

By 1400 hours, the gun camera film was ready. The images confirmed everything. The footage showed Japanese aircraft exploding, breaking apart, and falling in flames. Seven distinct kills, all occurring within six minutes. The film did not lie. Lipscomb’s debriefing confirmed the same story from a different angle. Thirteen aircraft, two Mustangs, ten kills, three escaped.

By 1600 hours, the confirmation was official. Captain William Shomo: seven aerial victories, one mission. He was an “Ace in a Day.” He was only the second American pilot to score seven or more confirmed kills in a single mission. Navy Commander David McCampbell had scored nine back in October of 1944, but nobody else had even come close.

Word spread like wildfire. By evening, pilots from other squadrons were coming by the 82nd’s area to hear the story directly. They wanted to see the man who had done the impossible. They asked about the tactics, the approach, and the shooting. Shomo answered their questions, describing the combat again and again. Each time he told it, it sounded more unbelievable, yet it was completely true.

He had flown two hundred and three combat missions before that day. During all those missions, he had seen exactly two enemy aircraft from his cockpit. One Val bomber on January 10th, and thirteen aircraft on January 11th. Fourteen total enemy aircraft sighted during the entire war; eight of them destroyed. That was a kill ratio no other pilot could match: 57% of every enemy aircraft he ever saw ended up destroyed by his guns.

Three months later, on April 1st, 1945, Major William Shomo stood on Luzon in front of Major General Ennis Whitehead. He was there to receive the Medal of Honor for leading an attack against overwhelming odds. The citation called it “extraordinary gallantry and intrepidity, unparalleled in the Southwest Pacific area.”

Shomo knew what it really was. It was six minutes of action after sixteen months of waiting.

The story, however, truly began long before that January morning. It began in August of 1941 when William Shomo enlisted in the Aviation Cadet program. Like every young man entering the service, he wanted to fly fighters. He wanted the dogfights. What he got was reconnaissance.

The 82nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron flew missions that other pilots often considered secondary work. They did photo recon, ground attacks, and strafing runs. It was vital work, but it wasn’t the kind of work that made names famous. In early 1943, when the squadron deployed to New Guinea, they were equipped with P-39 Airacobras.

The P-39 was a strange beast. The engine was mounted behind the pilot, with a 37 mm cannon firing through the propeller hub. On paper, it was formidable. In practice, it was plagued by range issues. It could fly about five hundred and twenty-five miles total. That meant only two hundred and sixty miles out and back. The Japanese were operating from airfields far beyond that radius—Rabaul, Truk, Wewak. All were out of range for Shomo’s P-39.

The squadron also used P-40 Warhawks, but they suffered from similar limitations. They were good for ground attacks and reconnaissance over captured territory, but useless for reaching the areas where Japanese fighters operated in strength.

Meanwhile, the P-38 Lightning and P-47 Thunderbolt squadrons were the ones scoring the victories. Richard Bong, Tommy McGuire, Gerald Johnson—these were the names in the papers. They flew aircraft that could reach Japanese airspace. Shomo flew missions where seeing an enemy aircraft was statistically improbable.

Month after month, he photographed beaches and counted supply dumps. He strafed trucks and barges, but he never saw a fighter. The frustration among his fellow pilots was palpable. They had the skills and the desire, but they lacked the range.

By late 1944, as the squadron moved to Morotai, the missions became more dangerous but no more rewarding in terms of aerial combat. They were flying low over enemy territory, getting shot at by anti-aircraft guns, and marking targets for bombers.

Then, in December, the F-6D Mustangs arrived. These were P-51Ds modified for the recon role, with cameras in the fuselage but keeping all six .50 caliber machine guns. Most importantly, they had the range. With drop tanks, they could fly over fourteen hundred miles. For the first time, Shomo had a plane that could reach the enemy and return.

January 9th was his first combat mission in the Mustang. It was also only his sixth flight in that aircraft type. He was literally learning the Mustang while leading combat missions. It was faster, more responsive, and had better visibility than anything he had ever touched.

When he saw that Val dive bomber on January 10th, he had a choice. His mission was to take pictures and leave. Engaging the enemy was not the primary goal. but he had waited two years for that moment. He took the shot, and the Val fell.

That night, Shomo couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about what might happen next. He didn’t have to wait long.

The mission on January 11th started as just another routine flight. Lieutenant Paul Lipscomb, only twenty-three and relatively new to the squadron, was his wingman. Neither of them expected to find a thirteen-plane formation.

The Japanese were actually withdrawing strength from northern Luzon at that time. With the American landings at Lingayen Gulf on January 9th, the invasion was succeeding. Japanese commanders were pulling aircraft back to Formosa. That Betty bomber Shomo found was likely carrying high-value personnel or critical cargo. You didn’t waste thirteen fighters on a routine transport.

The fighters were a mix: eleven Tonys and one Tojo. The Tony was a decent plane, roughly equivalent to a P-40, while the Tojo was a faster, more dangerous interceptor. But Shomo’s F-6D was faster than both, with a top speed of four hundred and thirty-seven miles per hour and a superior dive rate.

The tactical situation on January 11th was a masterclass in exploiting advantages. Shomo was at five hundred feet; the Japanese were at twenty-five hundred. He climbed unseen. Because the Mustang was new to the theater, many Japanese pilots didn’t recognize it. They assumed the two planes climbing toward them were friendly Tonys. That split second of confusion was all Shomo needed.

Shomo had spent three years preparing for this. He had studied tactics and practiced gunnery until it was second nature. He knew how to lead a target and how to manage his ammo. He had the theory; now he was applying the practice.

Lipscomb followed Shomo’s lead perfectly. As the two Mustangs climbed at three thousand feet per minute, they closed the vertical gap in less than sixty seconds. The Japanese remained oblivious until the first Tony exploded at a range of forty yards.

When the formation broke, the chaos favored Shomo because he stayed calm. He picked his targets methodically. He didn’t just spray bullets; he fired short, lethal bursts. When the Tojo tried to get on his tail, he used the Mustang’s ability to hold a tight turn at low speed to force the enemy into a stall.

After the sixth minute, as the wreckage burned across fifteen miles of Luzon terrain, the mission was done. Shomo and Lipscomb headed home. Shomo checked his fuel; the combat had been intense but short. He had more than half his fuel left.

The three surviving Tonys fled toward Formosa to report the slaughter. For the Japanese, it was an undeniable omen. Thirteen planes attacked by two, and only three survived. It was a testament to the shifting scales of air power in the Pacific.

Shomo’s name was added to the elite list of American aces. His promotion to Major came on April 1st, followed by the Medal of Honor ceremony on April 3rd. He continued to fly, but he only saw enemy aircraft one more time before the war ended—four fighters at a distance that he chose not to engage because the tactical situation wasn’t right.

His Mustang, “Snooks 5,” was eventually lost while being flown by another pilot. Shomo’s next plane was briefly “Snooks 6,” but he soon renamed it “The Flying Undertaker.” It was a nod to his past and a warning to his future enemies.

Shomo stayed in the military as it transitioned into the United States Air Force in 1947. He reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1951 and retired in 1968 after twenty-seven years of service. He returned to Pennsylvania, back to the civilian life he had left behind.

In later years, he was often asked about those six minutes. Shomo remained humble, always crediting luck and timing.

“I was just a pilot who got the opportunity and took it,” he would say.

But those who watched the gun camera film knew better. They saw the skill of a man who had prepared for years for a single moment of perfection.

William Shomo passed away on June 25th, 1990, at the age of seventy-two. He was buried in St. Clair Cemetery in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. He took the Medal of Honor with him, but the legend of the Flying Undertaker remained.

The lesson was simple: preparation matters. Three years of frustration and training culminated in six minutes of total dominance. Shomo understood that aerial combat wasn’t just about bravery; it was about the cold application of skill under pressure.

Lieutenant Lipscomb received the Distinguished Service Cross for his part in the action. He had been the perfect wingman, a role that is often forgotten but remains essential. Together, they had achieved one of the most successful fighter engagements in the history of the Pacific War.

Individual actions like Shomo’s didn’t win the war by themselves, but they accelerated the end. Every plane destroyed was one less threat to American lives. The “Flying Undertaker” had done his job, ensuring that the only bodies he had to worry about were the ones he sent down in flames, far from the peaceful parlors of Pittsburgh.