"Over The Japanese Fleet" - By An Airman Who was There

Taranaki Daily News, 1 September 1942, Page 2

"Over The Japanese Fleet" - By An Airman

Who was There

"4~VNE instant the aircraft-carrier is " intact. The next it is a shambles, with bomb after bomb ripping into its deck." This is war iri the-Paeiftc-. It !&• the kind of war that has been raging in the Solomons. It is brought home by this story, written for the Sydney Sun, by the commander of an American torpedo-squadron, a flier who led his men against the Japanese fleet in the Coral Sea battle. I see specks which steadily grow into 6hips. We all have a new feeling of tenseness that lasts until we are actually in action. Then it disappears. Those few minutes of waiting for contact are un-

doubtedly the worst. I take the squadron down fast. I see only three enemy ships steaming east, a cruiser off each bow of an aircraftcarrier. I We get lined up on the carrier and head straight for it, When we are still about 10 miles away the nearest cruiser opens on us. We see the reddislvorange flash of its guns and quickly change course. My heart does a half loop and seems to hang suspended, and my breathing stops as I wait for the burst of the shells. Then there are black puffs a mile ahead of Us, and my heart flips back into normal flight position and 1 begin to breathe again. A Close Salvo. The crulser's second salvo i? so close that we hear the "whaps" of the shells. We swing out away from his range. My tail gunner shouts over the radio that two 97 fighters are after us. They square away and dive on us from our quarter, coming within 150 yards and then zooming away. To shake them we dodge back toward the cruiser, which again cuts loose with ack-ack. We are now about four miles from the carrier. Both cruisers open at us. firing their shells into the sea to throw columns of water up ahead of us. Meanwhile. the carrier has started a fast circle to its left. running for its life. It has completed about a quarter-turn when our bombers suddenly dive on it. We don't see the bombers, but we do see their bombs. The next few seconds were indescribable. Our bombers were right on their mark. A bomb smashes her squarely just astern of midships. What must have been a heavy anti-aircraft gun moUnting lobs into the air and plops overside'into the sea. Smoke streams out astern from this huge wound. The carrier is Swinging to the left to avoid us. We duck into the trailing smoke and I signal for attack. We poke our noses throagh the smoke and go in fnr the kill. A sinfirle anti-airornft tfim

somewhere near the stern is still firing, but the carrier is already badly wrecked. with smoke and flames everywhere. I sight on the ship and think: "What a terrible mess." I have the sensation of sitting way off in one corner of the sky and watehing myself and the other planes twisting and manoeuvring down near the surface of the water. In my mind's eye I see the whole scene as from a great distance. Torpedo Away. Meanwhile, I release my fish and pull out. My plane jumps a little ahead as it is freed of the weight of the torpedo. My No. 2 plane releases, then soara out over the stern. We bank sharply and watch for the explosions. They come almost simultaneously— square hits amidships. The torpedoes throw up spouts of water like a fountain. The water reaches its maximum height in a column. then seems to spill over a little. A puff of smoke comes up from the centre of the column. The splashes are different from near-misses with bombs, where the water spatters in huge, wide splashes with heavy smoke and exploding gas shooting high into the air. My other planes push home the attack. As we pull away the carrier is beginning to settle. though still tuming. It turns thrice before stopping dead and going under. There is no ieeling ej exultation. There

is no emotional reaction except relief. I think that this one, at least. is no longer a danger. Its planes can't attack our own carrier. Our job is done now, so we rendezvous and head for home. I count the planes. All there. Everything okay. Then I count again and find one extra. But it is American. so we carry on. Landing, we find that five planes from another squadron have joined me, while four of mine came home with the other squadron. Making a Picture. Back on our carrier the pilots write individual reports and we find that each has seen a dozen things the others never noticed. Our impressions are disjointed, but gradually fit into one picture. We ask one fighter pilot from another squadron to describe the markings on the tail of the Japanese bombers. To his astonishment, he realises he hadn't even noticed whether they were twintail or single. But he can describe minutely the vital area in the Jap engine into which hi? bullets were pouring. My neck is horribly stiff and I realise that I've been turning my head constantly, from the take-off to the landing. I make a mental note to remind the air crews to take neck strengthening exercikes in preparation for battle. We have won the first round. but the enemy is still near. We learn how near at dusk, when six Japanese fighters mistake our carrier for one of theirs and qOme in to land. We open fire on them and chase them away. We know then that we've been spotted and that there'll be more action to morfow. It will be— even more 'han to-dav— definitely and finally a fight for our lives. Next morning our scouts report three enemy carriers and a large force ot other warships a considerable distance away. the enemy having changed couve during the night. Our commanders decide to attack despite the distance anri again we take off. I am pleased to find myself much calmer than yesterday, and as we fly to our target I plan ways for putting to use the lessons we've learned.

The Second Day. The weather is much dirtier than yesterday and when we find the enemy he is lying under a thick black cloud, apparently trying to hide. His tactics are partly successful. because our bombers and our torpedo planes become separated and my own. squadron is split. Going in we fly over one cruiser but he fails to fire at us. apparently believing we're members of his own force. We duck into a cloud and come out just astern of our target. It spots us and swings into a sharp right turn, opening with all its guns. The ack-ack bounces us around a bit but doesn't stop us. Neither do two fighters which get on our tails. Over a way, I see two fighters, one a Messerschmitt and the other a Zero, attacking a single plane of our squadron, chasing it right down to the surface. But our pilot keeps going until he manoeuvres into position and releases his torpedo in a quartering shot. The carrier looms up. Its planes are gone and we know they're over attacking our home carrier. That means we've got to hit him. We've pot to hope we get him and pray his planes don't get.

us. If they do, we won't have any place to go home to. The carrier shows signs of having been hit a few minutes before by our bombers. But it is not .smoking much. This ship is even bigger than the one we sank yesterday. and both are of the biggest, newest Jap types. We cut loose our fish and they catch him under the stern. The whole ship staggers and is obviously badly hit. It'll be surprising if he gets home. We didn't see him go down but others of our planes hit him later and left Him even more badly crippled. Fighters Attack. We pull away through heavy ack-ack fire from the cruisers. Almost simultaneously all our rear gunners sight a flight of at least 10 enemy fighters— yellow 97's— getting ready to attack us. Over the radio I scream at the boys to tighten up behind me. Also I scream at a lone fighter of ours which is sitting up at about 10,000 to get the hell down and give us a hand. I don't realise it, but later the boys tell me I was cussing a blue streak. The first fighter comes in at a steep dive and I see that our tracers are too far behind him. I scream at our gunners to give a bigger lead with their machineguns. The Japs don't come too close, not over 150 yards.

One by one they peel off and take a crack at us. Bullets whip through the radioman's cockpit of my No. 2 plane, smashing the gun mount and missing the radioman's head by half .an inch. Other planes are hit but not seriously. As each enemy fighter comes down his bullets puff up the water below us in a series of little sprays. Then our gunners steady down and we get the range. A 97 flies into our cone of fire and suddenly bursts into flame. It reels over and hits the water blazing. A second onc gets 'the same treatment and they decide they have enough and break off the action. They surely look beautiful— going away. Petrol Short. I figure the Japs must be nearly out

of gas and have to hurry home. Now the attack has stopped. I realise gas is becoming a serious problem to us. Our indicators are slipping toward empty and we don't know if we'll make it. One of us doesn't. Only 20 minutes from home the pilot of-one of my planes tells me by radio that his gas is gone and he has to sit down. We see him go' down on the water in a perfect landing, giving him and the crew plenty of opportunity to get into their boat. I feel sure they'll.turn up later somehow, somewhere. If they don't we'll continue to talk of them just as if they were alive. When some friend from another ship asks about them, my pilots will say, "they were smoked up over the Pacific." We simply can't let ourselves worry too much about death. It may be the tum of any of the rest of us to-morrow. Our engincs are beginning to cough when we finally sight our carrier. It shows no signs of damage. We hurry aboard. Several of my planes are considerably shot up. One will never get back. But we have won this round, too, and are ready for the next.