It's April 18th, 1943 and a squadron of P-38s races low over the waves of the Pacific.
In the formation, 1st Lieutenant Rex Barber struggles under the oppressive heat of the cockpit,
but he soldiers on, aware that they're on the hunt for the highest profile target of their careers.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the man who orchestrated Pearl Harbor,
who flaunted that he'll negotiate peace at the White House.
The American squadron presses on, the shore of Bougainville coming into view.
Rex Barber scans the skies.
Intelligence had been very specific.
One Betty Bomber and two flights of three Zeros.
Right here. Right at this time.
Their plan is simple and calculated.
Twelve Lightnings are going to climb high and cover them from above.
While remaining P-38s, a four-men killer group, will focus entirely on the bomber with the target.
They almost reach Bougainville when the radio signal comes in.
“Bogeys! Eleven o’clock high!”
As if on cue, an enemy formation emerges between the clouds.
Six Zeros, however, not one, but two Betty Bombers.
American pilots are taken aback.
Their plan is falling apart.
“Which one of them is Yamamoto's?”
“We'll have to take them both.”
The formation slams their throttles to fall, charging into battle.
All around Barber, 12 of his squad mates climb rapidly into the sky,
taking position as top cover and leaving the four chosen to perform the daring charge.
But there's more problems.
First Lieutenant Besby Holmes' drop tanks aren't coming off.
“Give me a second! I'll tear my tanks off!”
Barber is nervous to see Holmes dive out of formation, picking up speed to shake off the tanks.
“Ray, go with him!”
Wingman Raymond Hine quickly follows to protect him, cutting the killers' flight numbers in half.
Their chances are worse than ever.
They have double the targets and half the fighters.
Yamamoto is right in front of them.
Hell would freeze over before the American pilots let him go.
Yamamoto is on his way to visit one of their four operating airfields around Bougainville with eight of his officers
and among them is his second in command, loyal chief of staff, Matome Ugaki.
Ugaki is dozing off in his seat when unexpectedly one of their Zero escorts races past
and slows right in front of his Betty's nose, shaking his wings.
Confused, Ugaki takes a closer look and realizes the pilot is waving his hand, frenetically pointing at something.
Then suddenly the radio operator shouts for the pilot to dive and the Betty breaks into an abrupt evasive maneuver.
The officers all hang on for dear life as the Japanese bomber plunges into a desperate dive.
Ugaki is trying and failing to spot Yamamoto's aircraft.
Outside, three Zeros die for the pair of incoming P-38s, desperate to stop the attack.
Lamphier breaks formation, climbing to attack the Japanese fighters head-on and leaving Barber to charge in alone.
Lamphier opens fire and the Zeros respond in kind, with tracers crisscrossing in the sky.
Lamphier is unfazed as low-caliber guns strike him in the wings,
the sounds reverberating through the fuselage like hail.
He holds the trigger down, unleashing his weapons until the Zeros are forced to pull off from the collision course.
Barber, though, carries on, leaving the melee behind.
Before him the two Betties separate in opposite directions.
He picks one at random and gives chase.
But he's not alone.
Suddenly, a tracer streaks past just in front of his cockpit.
A Zero from Lamphier’s fight has chased him down as firing in from above.
The tracers continue to zip past his windshield.
He fights the urge to pull away and aims his sights square on the bomber.
Barber pulls the trigger...
and unleashes a hail of 50 caliber and 20 millimeter fire.
The shells rip through the enemy aircraft, parts fall away from the engine cowling
and a plume of oil pours out of the machine.
But Barber is relentless.
He holds the trigger down, even as he hears and feels his own aircraft being hit from behind.
He'll have to take this bomber even if it's the last thing he ever does.
But then the Zero hounding him roars past, giving him a few vital moments of reprieve.
Barber takes a better aim and continues dismantling the bomber,
tearing it apart as he chases it all the way down to tree top height.
Then, suddenly, the bomber pulls up out of control and rolls in the air.
Barber immediately dodges, barely missing the bomber's wing
as it tumbles out of control and crashes into a tree below, exploding into a massive fireball.
Barber looks back over his shoulder to see a column of black smoke rising from the green.
"It's down, what's next?"
He sets off for the next one.
But three more Zeros intercept him from above.
They open fire and Barber dodges, diving away for speed as he listens to the enemy bullets,
striking the wings and tail, the crackle of impacts echoing through the fuselage.
Barber skims the treetops, dodging left and right in a desperate fight for survival.
The three enemies are refusing to ease up.
But just as things get dire, he spots the two P-38s of Holmes and Hine up ahead.
There's hope.
He flies towards them, praying for them to see him.
To his luck, his prayers are answered.
The pair of Lightnings turn straight towards him, charging into the rescue.
But muzzle flashes shine on their noses.
His heart sinks.
Time slows to a crawl as the friendly tracers barrel down straight towards him.
He holds his aircraft steady and the shells streak by all around him.
He's surrounded by lead.
Shots from allies and enemy enveloping his machine.
The Lightnings come closer and closer, guns blazing, until they roar past overhead,
and, suddenly, the skies fall to an abrupt calm.
Barber looks back, shaken.
All the aircraft are gone.
The P-38s are speeding off and the Zeroes have been scattered by the two Lightnings' daring attack.
He takes a deep breath and sets off for the last Betty.
Holmes and Hine turn back around after saving Barber’s tail.
The shot had been risky, but it had worked, and now they chase after the last remaining bomber.
Holmes hunts it down as it tries to escape, skimming the waves out to sea.
Holmes opens fire, dumping as much ammunition as he can into the massive target.
But the aircraft stubbornly remains aloft as it fills more and more of his windshield.
"Go down or blow up, dammit!"
He keeps up the attack for as long as he dare.
Before dodging low, sending his P-38 roaring through the gap between the enemy and the sea.
Rex Barber watches his squadmate narrowly avoid collision with a severely wounded Betty,
but then he quickly realises that the target is still flying.
He dives in without skipping a beat and gets right on the bomber's tail
and pulls the trigger.
His volley strikes the fuel tank and detonates the fumes.
The bomber is engulfed in flames and plunges into the sea.
Barber has no time to react and he flies straight into the explosion with flames surrounding his aircraft.
But he emerges on the other side, unharmed.
He can't celebrate just yet. Right ahead he sees Holmes and Hine tangling with a pair of Zeros.
Hine’s P38 is littered with lead and dives away with heavy damage, while one of the Zeros is taken out by Holmes.
Barber crashes into the fight, catching the last Zero unaware and gunning him out of the sky.
“How's your subscribe level?”
“Very low! Help us out here!”
“If everyone subscribed, then that would be the mission accomplished.”
Then, finally, the squadron leader comes through on the radio.
“Everyone, get your ass home.”
But while a jubilant squadron returns to base, a figure emerges from the sea
surrounded by the flaming wreck of his aircraft.
It's Matomi Ugaki, badly injured, but alive.
The pilot also miraculously survived,
and together the two men both swam back to shore, clinging on to a piece of debris.
A third survivor would also be picked up by flying boat after the accident,
becoming the only three crew from the bombers to return home.
Yamamoto had been in the first bomber.
He was killed by Barber's gunfire before the aircraft even crashed.
His body was found and he was buried.
His loss inflicted a heavy emotional wound for the Japanese.
The widely respected Admiral was mourned across the nation.
He was given a full state funeral with the highest of honors which crowds gathered to attend.
Very few were affected harder than Ugaki, who never forgave himself for surviving the attack.
He would write about the events in his diary, recalling,
"Tracers flashed by our wings and the pilot frantically maneuvered to evade.
I waited impatiently for the airplane to return to horizontal position
so that I could observe the Admiral's bomber.
Although I hoped for the best, I knew only too well what the fate of the airplane would be."
The P-38's nose seemed to burst into twinkling flame
and suddenly the bomber shook from the impact of the enemy's machine gun bullets and cannon shells.
Everything turned black.
I felt the crushing force of salt water pouring into the fuselage and almost immediately we were below the surface."
Ugaki continued to serve in the navy for the rest of the war,
until the Emperor declared the end of hostilities on the 15th of August, 1945.
Indignant, that same day he dressed in his officer's clothes,
took a ceremonial sword gifted to him by Yamamoto and set off in the last kamikaze attack of the war.
Ugaki before his final kamikaze mission.
On the American side, the death of Yamamoto was received with great fanfare, but not all was celebration.
Tragically, First Lieutenant Raymond Hine would never make it home.
His crippled P-38 gave out underneath him somewhere in the return flight.
Every member of the flight would be given the Navy Cross for their involvement in the attack.
Rex Barber would survive the war and return home, passing away on July 26th, 2001.