They Banned His 50-Foot "Suicide Run" — Until It Destroyed 8 Japanese Ships in 15 Minutes

Why Major Ed Larner flew his B-25 Mitchell at fifty feet above the ocean during WW2 — and destroyed eight Japanese ships in fifteen minutes. This World War 2 story reveals how skip bombing changed naval warfare forever.

March first, nineteen forty-three. Major Ed Larner, Fifth Air Force bomber squadron commander, stood on Port Moresby airfield facing an impossible mission. A Japanese convoy carrying seven thousand troops was steaming toward New Guinea. Larner decided to attack at fifty feet altitude, skipping bombs across the water like flat stones. Every training manual said this was suicide. Higher command had banned the tactic twice, calling it "reckless disregard for equipment and personnel."

They were all wrong.

What Larner discovered that morning wasn't about dropping bombs from safe altitude. It was about physics and precision in a way that contradicted everything bomber school taught. By the end of March third — the Battle of Bismarck Sea — every B-25 squadron in the Pacific started doing what Larner had done. And they survived.

This technique spread unofficially through bomber groups, pilot to pilot and crew to crew, sinking two hundred twelve Japanese vessels before appearing in any training manual. The skip bombing principles discovered at Port Moresby changed anti-ship tactics permanently.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: This is entertainment storytelling based on WW2 events from
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