FIVE

“We Lost as Much as We Gained”

Dick Best savored the brief hiatus in Hawaii. Suspecting that more serious action was imminent, he used what little time he had to be with his wife and young daughter in Honolulu. Meanwhile, Cleo Dobson of VS-6 noticed that their carrier loaded more supplies and war matériel than ever before. Although no specific information was given, Dobson was told that he could expect more action on the Big E’s next cruise.¹

There were other indications that the ship meant serious business. During its time at Ford Island, Bombing Six received a few more Zed Baker homing devices and spare ZB accessories. To Chief Jim Murray, these were a godsend. This meant more SBDs could be equipped with the antenna and coax cables, necessitating only a shift in black boxes to meet flight schedule requirements.²

Bombing Six also received two sets of twin .30-caliber machine guns to replace the standard single .30-calibers currently used in its Dauntlesses. The doubled firepower units were installed in 6-B-1 and 6-B-10, the dive-bombers routinely flown by skipper Holly Hollingsworth and exec Dick Best. “All the gunners gathered around to inspect the ‘twins’ and wish we had more,” said Murray. At least there was hope that more twins would soon replace the single .30s.³

The extra equipment was timely. Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), had decided that the pickings were ripe for his aircraft carriers to effect an offensive raid on Japanese-held territory in the Pacific. His plan was to hit Jaluit and Mili in the southern Marshall Islands, as well as the new Japanese conquest of Makin Atoll in the northern Gilbert Islands.

Admiral Halsey’s Task Force 8 sailed west from Pearl Harbor on January 11. Enterprise’s destination was still a mystery to her pilots, until Halsey finally announced that a major offensive strike was in the planning. “Looks like some fireworks,” Cleo Dobson wrote in his diary.⁴

During the second morning at sea, gunner Jim Murray was enduring yet another long-range search flight. Before turning back, Lieutenant Commander Hollingsworth flew their 6-B-1 past the task force headed by the big carrier Saratoga, which was en route to Pearl Harbor.⁵

“Do you notice anything unusual about the Sara?” Hollingsworth asked over the intercom.

Murray swept his eyes over the length of the Navy’s third aircraft carrier. “Yes, she’s trailing a streak of oil behind her.”

Saratoga had been hit by a torpedo fired by the Japanese submarine I-6 the previous evening. She could still make sixteen knots by morning, but her planned rendezvous with Bill Halsey’s Enterprise task force was canceled. The Sara was heading in for repairs that would sideline her for months. For the time being, the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s carrier striking force had been cut to three—Yorktown, Lexington, and Enterprise.

Scouting Six had the morning search on January 13. Cleo Dobson was paired with a new pilot, Ensign Reid Stone, who had only recently become fully carrier qualified. They ran into bad weather 169 miles out and had to cut their search leg short by thirty-seven miles. Dobson had tense moments in leading Stone through the soup to find their flight deck again.⁶

Ensign Tony Schneider of Bombing Six had more difficulty. He was flying without one of the squadron’s new Zed Baker homing units. When he got back through the foul weather to where the ship was supposed to be, Enterprise was nowhere to be found. Like Dobson, Schneider commenced ever-expanding square search patterns to find his ship. “I wasn’t allowed to break radio silence and I wasn’t about to do it,” he said.⁷

Without the benefits of radar or radio, Schneider began to consider his options. He calculated the distance to the nearest of the Hawaiian Islands and his odds of being able to land on or near a beach. Good fortune was in his favor this day, however. Before he reached the point of no return, the ship radioed a “steer” (course correction) to him.

No contacts were made during the first days at sea, though the Dauntless airmen continued to hear the scuttlebutt of impending action with their new enemy. The weather was hot as Task Force 8 (TF-8) crossed the equator on January 15, and the days of routine patrolling soon turned disastrous. On January 16, Ensign Daniel Seid of Scouting Six crashed into the barrier upon landing his 6-S-2, killing the petty officer (ACMM George Frank Lawhon of Bombing Six) who was manning the arresting gear. Seid, one of the squadron’s replacement pilots, escaped the tragedy with only a small cut over his left eye. His gunner, Dave Craig, was unhurt. Further loss came when ACMM Harold Frederick Dixon’s TBD was forced to ditch at sea this day. He and his two VT-6 crewmen would drift some 750 miles in their rubber raft before finally reaching shore on Puka Puka Island.

The following day, Fred Weber of VB-6 ran out of fuel, suffering a broken jaw and lacerations to his lips during his water landing. A task force destroyer recovered him, but his gunner, Joe Ivantic, failed to escape from their sinking SBD. That afternoon, a somber funeral service was held on board Enterprise for her two casualties. Prayers were said for Ivantic, and Chief Lawhon’s body was buried at sea.⁸

Reid Stone of VS-6 added to the SBD casualty list on January 18, when, during a landing, he plowed his dive-bomber into the crash barrier. Stone and his gunner were uninjured, but their Dauntless was totaled. “This makes four planes in three days, which is too many if we expect to conduct a good war,” Cleo Dobson confided in his diary.⁹

Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher’s Task Force 17 received word of the offensive thrust on January 20 as his flagship Yorktown was just completing a mission of safeguarding the U.S. Marine landings on the island of Samoa. Admiral Halsey planned to carry out Nimitz’s orders by utilizing the Enterprise and Yorktown task groups for simultaneous strikes against Japanese bases in the Marshalls and Gilberts on the morning of February 1. Enterprise’s air group would concentrate on the islands of Wotje, Maloelap, and Kwajalein, while Fletcher and Yorktown’s air group was to hit the islands of Jaluit, Mili, and Makin.

The assaults would be America’s first chance to lash back at the mighty Japanese war machine. Admiral Nagumo’s pounding of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor had come off almost flawlessly. Only twenty-nine Japanese planes were lost, plus the minisubs and the one fleet submarine sunk by Scouting Six’s Dick Dickinson. At the same time, the Japanese had made attacks on Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, Wake, Midway Atoll, and the Philippine Islands. Other Japanese forces operating from French Indochina had sunk a British battleship and battle cruiser on December 10.

Nagumo’s Kido Butai returned to Japan unmolested on December 23, where his victorious pilots were showered with sake and praise for their surprise attack on America’s great fleet. Not one to rest on his laurels, Admiral Yamamoto dispatched Nagumo’s First Air Fleet carriers from the home islands in early January to the advance base at Truk Atoll in the Pacific. On January 20, Japanese carrier aviators began pounding Rabaul on New Britain and Kavieng on New Ireland in advance of their army’s planned landings in these areas. The war news that filtered back to Halsey on the Big E gave him great incentive to do something to show that the U.S. Navy was in the fight as well.

The Enterprise squadrons continued to fly routine scouting hops en route to the Marshalls. Ed Kroeger of VB-6 had a few tense moments on January 26 when he encountered a big four-engine PBY flying boat out of New Zealand. His gunner, Achilles Georgiou, found that the PBY crew failed to answer his identification challenges. Kroeger responded by firing several warning shots under the plane’s belly. “Everybody quickly stuck out their British flags and waved them back and forth after that,” said Georgiou. Spotting the New Zealand flag, Kroeger flew up alongside the flying boat. The crew gave him the thumbs-up signal to indicate their safety, and the close encounter ended without damage.¹⁰

Scouting Six XO Earl Gallaher flew over to Yorktown on January 28 to deliver Admiral Halsey’s latest plan of attack to Admiral Fletcher while both carrier task forces refueled. Three days later, Halsey brought his pilots up to speed. In an afternoon speech in one of the ready rooms, he said that radar had picked up a Japanese scouting plane coming out of Maloelap. Dick Best quickly realized that the snooper could jeopardize the entire mission. Halsey informed them that the strike would proceed as planned if the scout failed to report their force.¹¹

Pilots of Enterprise’s Scouting Six in a photo taken on January 24, 1942. Ten of these men flew into Pearl Harbor on December 7. Seven would be killed in action or taken prisoner during the first six months of the Pacific carrier war in 1942: (front row, left to right) Lieutenant (j.g.) Dale Hilton, Lieutenant Reggie Rutherford, Lieutenant Earl Gallaher (XO), Lieutenant Commander Hallsted Hopping (CO), Lieutenant Clarence Dickinson (FO), Lieutenant Frank Patriarca, and Lieutenant (j.g.) Dusty Kleiss; (standing, left to right) Ensign Percy Forman, Ensign Willie West, Lieutenant (j.g.) Ben Troemel, Ensign Daniel Seid, Ensign Reid Stone, Ensign Earl Donnell, Lieutenant (j.g.) Norm West, Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed Deacon, Ensign Cleo Dobson, Lieutenant (j.g.) Perry Teaff, and Lieutenant (j.g.) Carlton Fogg.

U.S. Navy

The radiomen/gunners of Scouting Six. Ten would die or be taken prisoner during the first six months of fighting in the Pacific: (front row, left to right) RM2c Jack Leaming, RM3c Donald Hoff, RM3c Alfred Stitzelberger, RM3c John Snowden, and RM1c William Bergin; (middle row, left to right) AM3c Erwin Bailey, RM1c Joe Cupples, RM3c Earl Howell, RM1c Thomas Merritt, RM3c Otis Dennis, and RM3c Louis Hansen; (standing, left to right) RM3c Porter Pixley, RM3c David Craig, RM2c William Stambaugh, RM1c Joe DeLuca, RM1c Harold Thomas, RM3c John Dance, RM3c Edgar Jinks, and RM3c Roy Hoss.

Mark Horan Collection, courtesy of Lieutenant Commander Joe DeLuca

Pilots of Enterprise’s Bombing Six in January 1942 before the Marshalls strike: (front row, left to right) Lieutenant Harvey Lanham, Lieutenant Lloyd Smith, Lieutenant Dick Best (XO), Lieutenant Commander Holly Hollingsworth (CO), Lieutenant Jack Blitch (FO), Lieutenant Joe Penland, and Lieutenant Jim McCauley; (middle row, left to right) Lieutenant (j.g.) Leonard Check, Ensign Norm Vandivier, Ensign Tony Schneider, Lieutenant (j.g.) Edwin Kroeger, Lieutenant (j.g.) Edward Anderson, Lieutenant (j.g.) John Van Buren, Ensign Bucky Walters, and Ensign Bill Roberts; (back row, left to right) Ensign John Doherty, Ensign Arthur Rausch, Ensign Fred Weber, Ensign Delbert Halsey, Ensign Keith Holcomb, and Ensign Thomas Ramsay.

Mark Horan Collection, courtesy of Lieutenant Commander James Murray

The radiomen/gunners of Bombing Six: (front row, left to right) RM2c Lee McHugh, RM3c Achilles Georgiou, RM3c Gail Halterman, RM2c Harold Heard, AOM3c Ernest Hilbert, AOM3c Will Hunt, RM3c Stuart Mason, RM2c Parham Johnson, and AMM3c William Steinman; (standing, left to right) ACRM Jim Murray, RM3c Edward Garaudy, AMM3c Herman Caruthers, ARM1c Harry Nelson, RM3c Lee Keaney, RM3c Glenn Holden, RM1c Carl J. Schlegal, RM3c Allen Brost, RM1c James M. Shea, and RM3c Jay Jenkins. Of this group, Hunt was lost during the Marshalls strike and Brost was wounded. More than three-quarters of these men would be lost during the first half of 1942.

Mark Horan Collection, courtesy of Lieutenant Commander James Murray

Gallaher learned Scouting Six’s first target in the Marshalls was to be a Japanese airfield on tiny Roi-Namur Island. “We had a really old map of the Marshall Islands and it showed just a little dot on the thing, which was Roi Island,” he said. Such intelligence was only slightly better than nothing.¹²

Cleo Dobson described the eager discussions among the pilots as similar to the banter before a big basketball game in college. Their excited chatter, however, soon became more philosophical. His VS-6 buddy Ben Troemel could not bear the thought of killing, saying, “It isn’t right.” In his diary, Dobson was less concerned with the prospect. “Kill or be killed, say I.”¹³

The weather began to turn nasty as the two American carrier forces approached the Marshalls and Gilberts. Staff aerologists called for foul weather again on the morning of February 1, but the Yorktown and Enterprise strikers were committed to America’s first offensive carrier strikes, good weather or bad. The operations orders written by Commander Thomas P. Jeter, the Big E’s executive officer, made things clear for all. “We can take pride in being privileged to participate in the first offensive engagement of the Pacific Fleet, and in the first naval action in which an American aircraft carrier has taken part,” Jeter’s memo concluded. “Remember Pearl Harbor.”¹⁴

Dick Dickinson was awakened at 0300 on February 1. The VS-6 flight officer was among the dozens of Enterprise pilots and gunners scheduled for action. He dressed and headed to the wardroom, where he found a certain eagerness among his shipmates. Khaki-clad aviators shoveled in their food, some excitedly chatting about the day’s prospects. Dickinson’s mouth was so dry he could not even swallow his fried egg. He instead crammed a piece of toast in his mouth, washed it down with a swig of water, and headed for the ready room to prepare.¹⁵

Flight quarters sounded at 0345. Jim Murray went to the flight deck to check over his 6-B-1 while his skipper, Holly Hollingsworth, remained below with the pilots. Enlisted radiomen did not attend pilot briefings, and did not know what strike plans were ordered unless their pilots briefed them. Topside, it was pitch-black as the moon ducked behind low clouds, with no wind and calm seas. Murray proceeded with preparing the skipper’s Dauntless and inspecting his new twin .30-caliber machine guns, anxiously awaiting the call to action.¹⁶

Below the flight deck in Scouting Six’s ready room, twenty-one chairs were neatly arranged in rows of threes. There, the pilots copied down all prestrike intelligence that was available from skipper Hal Hopping, plus the critical Point Option—where the Big E was expected to be found upon their return from the mission. The room smelled of coffee, consumed by the gallon by the pilots, and cigarette smoke, which hung like a haze throughout the compartment. In the ready rooms of Bombing Six, Torpedo Six, and Fighting Six, the pilots repeated the process.

Cleo Dobson had known for two weeks that his Dauntless would be carrying special camera equipment to document the initial action. It was a duty he did not cherish, running the risk of being shot down while flying low to allow his rear seat gunner to snap pictures. In the hours prior to launch, Dobson found his fellow VS-6 pilots to be tense but “in the mood.”¹⁷

“Pilots, man your planes!” Soon after 0400, the awaited order was broadcast throughout the carrier.

Holly Hollingsworth climbed into his cockpit without offering many specifics to Jim Murray. Some pilots gave their radiomen a hint of what could be expected. Dick Best made it clear to rear gunner Lee McHugh prior to takeoff that they would not be taken as prisoners of war if their SBD was shot down over the Japanese base. “Your job is to get those twin .30-calibers and the ammunition cans available to me,” he told McHugh in the event they had to crash-land on a beach. “We’re going to put our backs into a sand dune and we’re going to kill Japanese until they have to kill us to get the guns.”¹⁸

The flight deck was washed with moonlight. Restless pilots anticipated the launch process like marathon runners awaiting a shot from a starter pistol. Starters fired and engines roared to life, their blue exhaust drifting aft in the breeze. As he pushed his throttle forward to taxi down Enterprise’s deck, Dick Dickinson felt the same tension he had experienced long ago at Pensacola when he took off on his first solo flight.¹⁹

The morning’s combat air patrol (CAP) fighters began launching at 0445, followed by thirty-seven dive-bombers, eighteen each from Bombing Six and Scouting Six, plus Brigham Young in the CEAG plane. Enterprise next sent up nine bomb-armed Devastators of Torpedo Six. Only one dive-bomber, Daniel Seid’s 6-S-6, struggled with engine trouble, but he too managed to launch shortly after 0500 and chase after the main strike group.²⁰

Bombing Six and Scouting Six circled close to each other as their divisions grouped. Dickinson, leading VS-6’s third division, felt the unpleasant rocking of another plane from VB-6 passing close enough above to shake him with its prop wash. “I’ll never know how we avoided crashing into each other,” he said.²¹

The only loss for the Enterprise Air Group came when Ensign Dave Criswell’s F4F crashed during takeoff. The fighter pilot sank into the dark waters with his Wildcat.

Commander Young’s formation climbed to fifteen thousand feet in the predawn darkness, and by 0645, the attackers had arrived at a point twenty miles northeast of Roi-Namur Island, Kwajalein Atoll. The Enterprise strikers arrived over Roi fifteen minutes before dawn. The Japanese below heard the passing engines and were ready by the time Young recognized the island through dense ground fog. Dick Best was startled when guns suddenly broke loose and began firing behind him. A Scouting Six plane had suffered a mechanical failure, causing its guns to go into automatic fire when the pilot tried to charge them.²²

• • •

Whereas Scouting Six was specifically assigned to pound the Roi airfield, Bombing Six was operating on a freelance basis and would reserve their munitions for shipping or shore installations deemed most worthy of attack. We know very little about this place, pilot Tony Scheider thought as he eyed the island below. Nobody knows what we’ll find here. We’re going in with no aerial reconnaissance info or anything. If I make it out of here, I’ll be able to draw a better map of Kwajalein than this one they gave us.

The morning sun was just peeking over the horizon as Hal Hopping led Scouting Six in first from fourteen thousand feet. Japanese Type 96 fighters (Mitsubishi A5M “Claudes”) were scrambled from the Roi airfield while AA gunners took their stations. Hopping ordered an echelon to the right. In such formation, each SBD was stationed behind and to the right of Hopping’s leading bomber. Each pilot allowed enough space between his own and the plane ahead of him to retain a good view of the target airfield below. As VS-6’s first division pushed over at 0705 in glide bombing runs on Roi, the sky quickly darkened with menacing black bursts of AA fire.²³

Hopping glided over the beach and released his bombs over the airfield—the first American ordnance to explode on Japanese soil during World War II. By this time, ten Type 96 fighters from the local Chitose Air Group had gotten airborne to challenge the SBDs. One of the Japanese fighters bored in on Hopping’s tail as he recovered low and level over the island. As witnessed by several of his junior pilots, Hopping’s Dauntless was pounded by both shore gunners and the Claude on his tail. He and gunner Harold Thomas returned fire, but their fight was brief. Heavily damaged, their SBD spun into the Pacific northeast of Roi, killing both Scouting Six’s skipper and senior radioman.²⁴

Perry Teaff and Ben Troemel, close behind their skipper, both dumped all three of their bombs in their excitement. Most pilots opted to save their five-hundred-pound bomb for possible shipping targets to be encountered later. Dale Hilton, with wingmen Cleo Dobson and Percy Forman, followed the skipper’s first section. For gunner Jack Leaming, it was his first experience being seated backward facing the SBD’s tail during a dive. Hurtling downward about three hundred miles an hour, he could not see where in the hell he was going. Leaming watched the altimeter spin like a top as their SBD screamed into its dive. When it read fifteen hundred feet, he called, “Mark!” over the ICS. Hilton then released their bomb and pulled out of the dive. As the nose of the plane swung up and the horizon sprang into view, Leaming emptied a can of .30-caliber bullets, strafing the airstrip at low altitude.²⁵

Lieutenant Earl Gallaher felt that Hopping’s speed had appeared to be too slow in the face of considerable antiaircraft fire from shore batteries. He led his second and third divisions in a circle at an altitude of about ten thousand feet while allowing the first division to clear out. The Claude that shot down Hopping then started up toward Gallaher.²⁶

He and his opponent traded fire as they approached each other head-on. Gallaher found later that only one bullet pierced his cowling in the exchange. As they flashed closer together, the Claude finally pulled up. Rear gunner Tom Merritt squeezed off a few .30-caliber bursts at the passing fighter.²⁷

Gallaher, with wingmen Carl Fogg and Willie West, pressed into dives that reached speeds in the neighborhood of two hundred knots. Fogg, twenty-four, had graduated from the University of Maine and was a tall, dashing bachelor admired by the ladies for his looks. His 6-S-11 was hit by flak during his bombing approach and he never fully recovered from his dive. He continued across the island and crashed into the sea about a half mile north of Roi. Neither Fogg nor his gunner, RM3c Otis Lee Dennis, survived.

The next section of Reggie Rutherford, Dusty Kleiss, and Earl Donnell dropped only their small wing bombs. Kleiss landed his hundred-pounders on a parked plane while he strafed the ground. Upon pullout, as he tried to join with his section, Kleiss saw a Japanese fighter slide past him, latch onto the tail of Donnell’s 6-S-18, and open fire.

From his rear seat, Jack Leaming looked over his shoulder just in time to see Donnell’s starboard wing blow off, and then the plane spiraled upward through the air as the rest of the aircraft dropped straight down. Donnell and his rear seat man, AMM2c Alton John Travis, both perished in the crash. It all happened in a split second directly in front of Hilton’s SBD, but too fast for Leaming to identify who had been hit. Our own hide is too important to devote too much attention to others, he thought.²⁸

Kleiss’s rear gunner, John Snowden, opened up with his .30-caliber. As the squadron educational officer, Kleiss had handpicked Snowden to be his rear seat man because of his shooting ability. “I grabbed him before anyone else had the chance to know how good his gunnery was,” he said. “He was the best, I’m sure, of our radiomen-gunners.” Snowden stitched lead into the Claude fighter; then Kleiss saw the enemy dive past his SBD at the point-blank range of twenty feet. He too fired a short burst, lost sight of him, and two seconds later spotted the Claude in flames.²⁹

Kleiss watched the Japanese fighter plunge a thousand feet down into the sea. Its pilot did not bail out. Snowden was credited by the squadron with the kill. Another pair of Claudes jumped Willie West as he roared across Roi. His gunner, AMM3c Milton Wayne Clark, was credited with shooting down one of his opponents. West witnessed a second Claude receive full gunfire attention from Clark. This plane was last seen to roll over onto its back, apparently out of control, but West, fully engaged in evasive action, was unable to see whether the fighter crashed.

Next in was Dick Dickinson’s six-plane third division. One of his wingmen, Dan Seid, was hit by either AA fire or by a Japanese fighter. Seid’s 6-S-6 was last seen making an extremely fast, but controlled, downwind landing on the water about one mile north of Roi. Neither Seid nor his gunner, AMM3c David Franklin Grogg, were to be seen again.

Dickinson dropped his pair of wing bombs toward a bunch of buildings on the airfield and kicked his tail around quickly, glancing back in time to see his ordnance explode into one of the buildings. His wingman, Norm West, dropped his bombs right next to the same building on what was apparently an ammunition storehouse. “It went up with a tremendous bang and a gigantic flare,” said Dickinson. “That was quite gratifying.”³⁰

Either Dickinson or West may well have been the pilot who put a bomb through the roof of the atoll headquarters. The resulting blast claimed the Imperial Japanese Navy’s first flag officer of the war, killing Rear Admiral Yatsushiro Sukeyoshi—who was celebrating his fifty-second birthday.³¹

Several VS-6 crews circled around to make secondary runs in the face of intense machine-gun and AA fire. Hilton dropped his load and pulled away as Leaming strafed a building where soldiers were running out of a door. A shiny brass shower of spent cartridges flew through the rear cockpit and out into 6-S-7’s slipstream as Leaming mowed down the Japanese soldiers.³²

During his second attack, Willie West was wounded in the right shoulder by gunfire from an enemy fighter. Yet his 6-S-12 remained intact, so the injured pilot turned his Dauntless back toward Enterprise, where he and Clark were recovered safely. Scouting Six paid a heavy price in its first attack on Japanese-held soil, losing four SBDs and their crews. In return, they claimed six planes destroyed on the ground, two fighters killed in aerial combat, two hangars bombed or strafed, one large building destroyed, six storehouses destroyed, and damage to shore installations.

Reid Stone’s 6-S-15 was hit by AA fire during its bombing run over Roi, ripping a large hole in his right main fuel tank. He rendezvoused with Perry Teaff and Ben Troemel for the return toward Enterprise and they were soon joined by Dale Hilton, Pat Patriarca, and Ed Deacon. Earl Gallaher felt that if Scouting Six’s Dauntlesses had been equipped with leakproof tanks, Stone’s plane would have been able to continue the assault and expend his five-hundred-pound bomb.

After his first attack, Dusty Kleiss joined formation on Dickinson and Cleo Dobson. As the trio circled around to make another attack, they were jumped by three fighters. Joe DeLuca, rear gunner for Dickinson, found his machine gun difficult to manage due to his slight weight. When his plane was charged by a Claude, DeLuca pressed the foot release to lower the gun and it instantly fell all the way to the bottom. He struggled to bring it to bear but was not able to get off a shot against the fighter.³³

Curiously, the Japanese pilots did not force their attacks. Dickinson watched in amazement as two enemy fighters climbed away and proceeded to perform aerial stunts. “They looped together and followed with an elegant slow roll,” he remembered. “They just sat up there and did what we call ‘flat-hatting,’ a term for all kinds of stupid, show-off flying.”³⁴

Dobson suddenly found a Japanese fighter coming at him from about a thousand feet above and in front. The two planes were on a collision course, and both fired at each other for all they were worth. Dobson saw three puffs of white smoke in the fighter’s engine before it went by, missing a collision by mere yards. From Dobson’s rear seat, RM3c Roy Hoss saw that the Claude was losing altitude and weaving around after he flashed past their SBD.³⁵

From Holly Hollingsworth’s VB-6 command plane, Jim Murray had watched Scouting Six commence its attack on Roi. The dawn air had erupted with colorful red tracers that clawed angrily at the plunging war birds. He saw Hal Hopping’s Dauntless burst into flames and head for the water. Suddenly he heard Torpedo Six skipper Gene Lindsey open up on the radio: “Targets suitable for heavy bombs at Kwajalein anchorage.”

Japanese shipping! Another of the torpedo boys had mistakenly taken one of the enemy vessels for a carrier off Kwajalein Island. Brigham Young at 0705 ordered Hollingsworth to take his Bombing Six and attack. As his squadron approached Kwajalein from fourteen thousand feet, Murray thought, It looks like the state of Florida. The island’s outline was formed by small coral islets, with Roi and Kwajalein being the largest.³⁶

Bombing Six (VB-6) Tactical Organization Marshall Islands Attack: February 1, 1942
FIRST DIVISION
PLANE	PILOT	REAR SEAT GUNNER
6-B-1	Lt. Cdr. William Right Hollingsworth	ACRM James Francis Murray
6-B-2	Lt. Harvey Peter Lanham	ARM2c Edward Joseph Garaudy
6-B-3	Lt. Lloyd Addison Smith	AMM2c Herman Hull Caruthers
6-B-7	Lt. James Wickersham McCauley	RM2c Harry William Nelson Jr.
6-B-8	Ens. Keith Haven Holcomb	AMM2c Lloyd E. Welch
6-B-9	Lt. (jg) Wilbur Edison Roberts	AMM1c James H. Shea Jr.
SECOND DIVISION
PLANE	PILOT	REAR SEAT GUNNER
6-B-10	Lt. Richard Halsey Best	RM2c Lee Thomas McHugh
6-B-11	Lt. (jg) Edwin John Kroeger*	RM3c Achilles Antonius Georgiou
6-B-12	Lt. (jg) John James Van Buren	RM3c Allen James Brost*
*Wounded in action on February 1, 1942.
SECOND DIVISION
PLANE	PILOT	REAR SEAT GUNNER
6-B-16	Lt. (jg) Leonard Joseph Check*	ARM2c Stuart James Mason Jr.
6-B-17	Lt. (jg) Edward Lee Anderson	ARM2c Parham Screeton Johnson
6-B-18	Ens. Delbert Wayne Halsey	AOM2c Arie Turner Alford
THIRD DIVISION
PLANE	PILOT	REAR SEAT GUNNER
6-B-4	Lt. John Devereux Blitch	AMM2c William Burr Steinman
6-B-5	Ens. Norman Francis Vandivier	S1c Lee Edward John Keaney
6-B-6	Ens. Tony Frederic Schneider	RM3c Glenn Lester Holden
6-B-13	Lt. Joe Robert Penland	ARM2c Harold French Heard
6-B-14	Ens. Clifford Raymond Walters	AMM2c Wilbur Thomas Thompson
6-B-15	Ens. John Joseph Doherty	AOM3c William Evan Hunt
CEAG	Cdr. Howard Leyland Young	CRM John Murray O’Brien

*Wounded in action on February 1, 1942.

Below him in the anchorage, Murray could make out freighters, tankers, a few submarines, and a light cruiser. He knew now was the time to make good on paying back the Japanese for Pearl Harbor. Commander Jeter’s orders for February 1 seemed most appropriate: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, this Sunday it’s our turn to shoot.”

At 0725, Bombing Six was over the Kwajalein area. From high altitude, they found the report of a carrier to be in error. Holly Hollingsworth saw several large ships in the lagoon putting up a heavy barrage of antiaircraft and machine-gun fire, but no aircraft carrier was present. Hollingsworth knew that his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Commander Bob Armstrong, was likely getting in his own licks at this very minute. Armstrong, skipper of Yorktown’s Bombing Five, was leading his SBDs into dives on Japanese ships in the harbor of Jaluit Atoll at 0725. Back home on Coronado Island near the San Diego Naval Air Station, Hollingsworth’s and Armstrong’s wives lived just blocks from each other.

In the center of the anchorage position was a large ship that VB-6’s pilots believed to be an antiaircraft cruiser. The ship was actually the former cruiser Tokiwa, which had been converted to a minelayer. Hollingsworth gave the signal to attack at 0727, and his divisions separated for their dives, selecting a shipping target for their five-hundred-pounders. Hollingsworth selected the cruiser for his own target. “As we went into our dive, all hell broke loose on the cruiser,” said Jim Murray. “The ship looked as if it was on fire with all their guns blasting away.”³⁷

As Murray called off the descending altitude, his eyes darted from his rear seat altimeter to the ack-ack buzzing past their wings. Murray saw their bomb land on the port side of Tokiwa’s fantail, and the aft end of the cruiser jumped out of the water from the explosion’s force. Harvey Lanham and Lloyd Smith achieved near misses on a nearby tanker.

Dick Best, leading VB-6’s second division, decided he would drop his five-hundred-pound bomb first, then make a second run to unleash his twin hundred-pound wing bombs. He had read that a large bomb would suppress the effect of a smaller bomb when dropped at the same time. “Everybody else dropped in salvo, and got the hell out of there,” said Best. “If I’d had any sense, that’s what I’d have done.” He dropped his five-hundred-pounder on the transport Bordeaux Maru and circled to make another run.³⁸

Lieutenant (j.g.) Leonard Check led the second section of VB-6’s second division in as Best prepared for his second run. Check’s rear gunner, ARM3c Stuart Mason, felt the G-forces pressing against him as they dived on a merchant ship anchored in Kwajalein’s lagoon. As they pulled out, their Dauntless was hit by antiaircraft fire that punched a big hole in the starboard inboard tank and left Check with minor shrapnel wounds. They lost a quarter of their fuel and barely made it back to the ship. “More attacks were made but Check and I didn’t fly anymore,” said Mason.³⁹

Dick Best was lining up a second merchant ship when another Dauntless flew right through his line of sight. He pulled out over the harbor with his SBD under heavy fire from a column of Japanese warships. Although his engine was struggling and sputtering oil, Best was able to coax his Dauntless back to the Big E from his first combat bombing mission.⁴⁰

Jack Blitch, leading the third division, landed a direct hit on a cargo vessel off Roi. His wingman, Norm Vandivier, added a near miss. Joe Penland was credited with damaging another large cargo vessel and Jack Doherty landed a direct hit with his five-hundred-pound bomb. Tony Schneider watched the decks of a cargo vessel grow larger in his telescopic sight before making his drop. Schneider’s gunner, Glenn Holden, announced that their bomb was a miss right alongside their target freighter.⁴¹

As Holly Hollingsworth circled the lagoon, Jim Murray saw several ships burning and smoking from bomb hits. Their Dauntless passed close by a seaplane hangar and ramp, where Murray spotted two huge Mavis four-engine flying boats sitting wingtip to wingtip. “Boy, did my eyes light up and my trigger finger became itchy,” he related.⁴²

“Captain,” he called over the intercom. “Do you want to make an overhead run so I can test my twin .30s on the flying boats?”

“Hell, no!” Hollingsworth snapped. “We want to get the hell out of here!”

• • •

Scouting Six had lost four SBDs in the attack over Roi, and now the remaining planes realigned into new formations. Dusty Kleiss swept in over Kwajalein with Dickinson and Dobson flying to his left side as they prepared to attack the shipping from an altitude of eighty-five hundred feet. Numerous ships dotted the water below, but Dusty focused on what looked to be a large cruiser anchored in the Kwajalein harbor.

There’re no fighters around, he thought. Oh, boy, this is great!

He knew, however, that dive-bombing a ship was much different from the glide-bombing runs the scouts had made on the airfield at Roi. A mile and a half above the harbor, Dusty proceeded into his dive. Pulling his plane’s nose up slightly, he then dropped it straight down. As his angle increased to seventy degrees, he used his dive brakes to help check his descent rate. The Dauntless reached terminal velocity at about 240 knots, or 276 miles per hour. It would take only twenty seconds from the start of his dive until he would make his pullout above the warship.

The longer he waited before pulling out, the greater his odds were of scoring a direct hit. But the lower the release point, the greater the odds his plane would be caught in the bomb’s fragmentation pattern, or his SBD would slam into the harbor at terrific speed. Somewhere in there—generally around two thousand feet or slightly less—the Dauntless pilots knew there was a happy median that offered both personal safety and a higher chance of a direct bomb hit. Dusty had already unloaded his wing bombs. He now had one chance to make his dive count with the larger five-hundred-pound bomb.

Just above his instrument panel was the three-powered telescope that he squinted through to keep his target lined up throughout his dive. If Dusty allowed his Dauntless to “skid”—drift laterally right or left—his sight would be off the flight path and his bomb would not hit where his sight indicated. Even if he released as low as fifteen hundred feet above target, one degree of skid would throw his bomb off about twenty-eight degrees. For the cruiser centered in his sights below, even that much off would cause his bomb to move from dead center to a near-miss alongside the vessel. He held his aim until his altimeter passed two thousand feet.⁴³

Then Dusty pulled the bomb release. He began a sharp pullout, closing his dive brakes at the same time. He felt pressure six times the force of gravity as his SBD pulled six g’s. A “g-meter,” an instrument showing the force of gravity, indicated pressure that was immediately obvious to the pilot. At six g’s and higher, Dusty knew that he would go into some stage of blackout. At lower stages, it became difficult to see. At higher stages, vision went away altogether until he eased back on the stick to flatten out his pull-up. The length of the time, the severity of the pullout, and the pilot’s physical conditioning all factored into how severe a blackout stage he experienced.

This time, the blackout feeling was not severe. Dusty pushed his control stick forward to get right down on the water to escape the AA fire. From his rear seat, Johnny Snowden blasted away at the cruiser even as their bomb exploded dead center on the Japanese ship. Dusty roared across Kwajalein, passing directly over a radio station near the shoreline, and squeezed the trigger on his stick, lacing the building with machine-gun fire from his .50-caliber forward guns. Snowden then strafed it with his .30-caliber Browning from the rear.

Separately and almost simultaneously, Dick Dickinson and Cleo Dobson had pushed over into their own attacks against other prime targets at about 0743. Dickinson set his sights on a large Yawata-class liner—likely the large submarine depot ship Yasukuni Maru—which had a seaplane perched on its stern. He aimed right for the plane on her deck, and his aim was good—his five-hundred-pound bomb struck the stern and the blast wrapped the ship in flames. Dickinson looked back to see Dusty Kleiss’s bomb strike the large cruiser. His other companion, Dobson, was credited with landing his big bomb squarely on a submarine tied up alongside a tender.⁴⁴

Dobson could see only the tender at first, but as the distance narrowed, he made out the submarine through his bomb site. He saw his load hit squarely on the tail of the submarine. “It really blew the ass end of the sub and the last I saw he was sinking,” Dobson logged.⁴⁵

• • •

Upon completion of his first assault on Roi-Namur Island, Earl Gallaher joined up with Percy Forman, Norm West, and Reggie Rutherford and proceeded to Kwajalein Island. The foursome initiated a dive-bombing attack from twelve thousand feet at 0748, sweeping in on the shipping below. Gallaher did a figure eight coming down on this dive to avoid antiaircraft fire. He felt certain that his five-hundred-pounder was a direct hit on the stern of a cruiser—likely the former cruiser Tokiwa—while Forman missed a supply ship with his load. West scored a direct hit on a tanker. Rutherford claimed a possible hit on another large tanker and then strafed the radio station at Enubuj Island before Gallaher’s four Dauntlesses turned for home.⁴⁶

The pilots continued to attack targets of opportunity until each of their three bombs had been expended. Various smaller ships, seaplanes, a radio installation, three submarines, and shore installations were additionally strafed. Several VS-6 planes strafed a Japanese motor launch, forcing its crew to dive overboard and leave the launch running about in circles. Jim McCauley and Leonard Check were largely credited with destroying several seaplanes discovered floating in the lagoon.

Japanese records indicate that Air Group Six had sunk the transport Bordeaux Maru and left auxiliary subchaser No. 2 Shonan Maru in a sinking condition. The submarine I-23 was damaged by near misses and strafing, although the other Japanese submarines managed to submerge during the attack—likely appearing to be “sinking” to some of the aviators. The 11,933-ton submarine depot ship Yasukuni Maru was hit by one bomb in her after turret and was further damaged by near-miss bomb fragments that struck her stern. Other Japanese vessels damaged by Enterprise SBDs and TBDs to varying degrees on February 1 were the tanker Toa Maru, tanker Hoyo Maru, army cargo ship Shinhei Maru, minelayer Tokiwa, and auxiliary netlayer Kashima Maru.⁴⁷

The heavy presence of Japanese ships off Kwajalein compelled Bill Hollingsworth, VT-6 skipper Gene Lindsey, and his second section leader, Lieutenant (j.g.) Arthur Ely, to radio back to the ship for more Devastators. The remaining nine TBDs on Enterprise had been loaded with torpedoes, and were quickly launched under command of the VT-6 exec Lieutenant Lance Edward “Lem” Massey.

The first aerial torpedo attackers in American history quickly encountered a barrage of Japanese gunfire. The Devastators struck two tankers and one merchant vessel, claiming hits on all three. The final three-plane section, under Lieutenant (j.g.) Paul “Pablo” Riley, set their sights on the light cruiser Katori as she attempted to escape. Riley and Irvin McPherson released from within a thousand yards, as did third pilot Ensign Glenn Hodges. McPherson noticed that Katori was stopped and down at the stern in shallow water.⁴⁸

For its part, Bombing Six suffered no lost planes or injured personnel, although six aircraft were damaged by shrapnel and machine-gun fire. At 0745, the attack was completed and the squadron returned to the ship in small groups, joining up en route. For Scouting Six, the aircraft and personnel losses were a tough pill to swallow. It was not a real successful attack, Dusty Kleiss thought. We lost as much as we gained.

• • •

The surviving planes returned to Enterprise low on fuel, but the aircrews were eager to get back into the fight. The first survivors from Scouting Six—Patriarca, West, Hilton, and Deacon—landed at 0905. West’s 6-S-12 and Patriarca’s 6-S-13 had been damaged enough by gunfire that they were hauled down to the hangar deck for repairs. Holly Hollingsworth and six of his VB-6 planes touched down right behind them.

Hollingsworth raced to the bridge to report to Admiral Halsey, while gunner Jim Murray remained with their 6-B-1 as it was refueled and rearmed. Reports from VF-6 Wildcat pilots said that enemy Type 97 fighters were airborne over the newly constructed military airfield and base on Taroa Island. “Mr. Hollingsworth had hardly returned from the bridge when flight quarters sounded,” Murray said.⁴⁹

The first of the reserviced Dauntlesses were launched again for a second strike at 0935. Dale Hilton and Ed Deacon of Scouting Six flew with seven pilots from Bombing Six: Holly Hollingsworth, Bucky Walters, Lloyd Smith, Jack Blitch, Norm Vandivier, Tony Schneider, and Joe Penland. Despite the presence of enemy fighters over the target areas, the aircrews found that there would be no Wildcats available to escort them. They departed immediately for Taroa Island, climbing to nineteen thousand feet for a planned up-sun strike position.

The remaining ten SBDs of Scouting Six were recovered by Enterprise around 1000. Three of the bombers—Dickinson’s 6-S-4, Forman’s 6-S-9, and Stone’s 6-S-15—had been damaged by gunfire and were stuck belowdecks for repairs. “Most of us as we came aboard piled down into the wardroom, grabbed sandwiches, tomato or pineapple juice or coffee, and then ran to our various ready rooms fairly wild to see who was there and who was not,” Dickinson said. With his damaged plane out of service, Dickinson settled into Air Plot to listen to the morning’s excitement coming in over the radio.⁵⁰

Jim Murray felt like his plane had hardly gotten into the air when suddenly they were over the Taroa military airfield. The Big E was operating only about ninety-five miles from the Japanese bases. At 1032, Hollingsworth and Jack Blitch led their sections down on Taroa in a high-speed, nose-down approach. The skipper counted a dozen two-engine bombers parked in a single row on the edge of the north–south runway. Five fighters were parked in front of the north hangar and another six sat at the south end of Taroa’s main runway. Two bombers were parked to the northeast of the runways, separated from the rest of their group. Hollingsworth dropped a ripple salvo of all three bombs, destroying two large bombers and setting two others afire. He also spotted three small fighter planes catching fire from the explosions.

As Hollingsworth retired from the area, Jim Murray could see black puffs of the bursting shells about one thousand yards behind and above their 6-B-1. Suddenly, Jack Blitch came on the radio, excitedly screaming, “Captain! The AA had a bead on you! You’d better get out of there!”⁵¹

Murray, facing aft to watch for fighters, was already keeping his skipper apprised of every black puff of AA fire. I guess Lieutenant Blitch must think I’ve lost my eyesight! he sneered to himself.

Bucky Walters, second to dive, dropped his big bomb on a hangar that likely housed aviation fuel. The resulting explosion sent flames high into the sky. Walters proceeded to Ollot Island, where he landed each of his hundred-pound bombs on additional structures. Lloyd Smith demolished three parked Japanese fighters. The Japanese machine gunners finally came to life as Lieutenant Blitch led in the second section next. His first wing bomb hit demolished a large bomber and set two fighters on fire. Blitch then set ablaze an oil storage tank with his five-hundred-pounder and headed for Ollot to dump his final hundred-pounder on an antiaircraft emplacement. A series of white smoke bursts erupted around the emplacement as Japanese ammunition cooked off. Blitch’s 6-B-4 escaped the action with only a single bullet hole in his right aileron.

Norm Vandivier dropped all his bombs in the initial dive and blasted a small barracks. Tony Schneider ripped open a T-shaped barracks building with his toggled load. Following their pullouts, Vandivier and Schneider strafed a small boat seen proceeding toward a pier on Ollot. Schneider was just pulling out of his strafing run when he suddenly saw tracers streaking past his plane. From the rear seat, RM3c Glenn Holden shouted out the obvious: “There’s a fighter on our tail!”⁵²

“Well, shoot him!” Tony hollered back.

Schneider did not have time to announce the presence of fighters over the radio to his comrades. Holden hammered away with his .30-caliber until he swung the gun too hard on its tracking ring and busted a bearing in the mounting. “Sir! The thirty can’t traverse!” Holden called over the intercom.⁵³

“Do your best and get it up!” Schneider hollered back.

With his rear guns out of commission, Tony knew escape lay in his hands only. “He had a better plane than I did for dogfighting, and every time we would make a scissors turn, he would gain a little on me,” said Schneider. He also noticed another enemy fighter sitting up above on his perch. He wants to get into this fray, too, but he doesn’t know how, Tony thought.⁵⁴

The Japanese fighter on his tail did not push his attack home. Still, the wily pilot seemed willing to display the maneuverability of his plane and fire outside of gun range. “When you’re pissed off and you have someone behind you that wants you dead, you can suddenly work magic,” Schneider said. “I wanted that guy to work for his money.” Schneider felt that his radical turns were more than enough to frustrate his opponent, who was unable to put bullets in the Dauntless. The frantic pursuit took them to within three hundred feet of the wave tops before Tony was able to force his opponent to break off. He was amazed to see the Japanese pilot fly right by his starboard side and shake his fist at the American before departing.

“I could see the expression on his face,” Tony said. “He was that close.” As the Japanese pilot broke off, Schneider slammed his canopy shut and pushed his throttle to full bore. He had gotten separated from Lieutenant Blitch’s division and it was time to get the hell out of the area. He headed for home independently, avoiding more enemy fighters that passed by overhead.

Joe Penland hit the southern hangar with his five-hundred-pound bomb and dropped his small bombs in salvo near parked planes. The eighth pilot in order, Dale Hilton of VS-6, released his full load in a ripple salvo, aiming at the northern hangar. Ed Deacon, flying tail-end Charlie of the Taroa strike group, landed his bombs between the two hangars.

“It seemed that our group had stirred up a hornets’ nest at Taroa,” said Jim Murray of the fighters who engaged Bombing Six. Holly Hollingsworth retired to the northward with his eight comrades following. When he was about six miles north of Taroa’s airfield, he was attacked by a diving Japanese fighter. He took evasive action and escaped with no bullet holes in his plane.⁵⁵

Two of Hollingsworth’s pilots became separated from the group but finally managed to join the other seven SBDs before arriving back over Enterprise. Upon landing, the second-strike aviators were told to report to sick bay for a shot of whiskey to calm them down.⁵⁶

• • •

Admiral Halsey was eager to keep pounding the Japanese installations on the Marshalls. Enterprise turned into the wind at 1015 and began launching a third bomber strike on Taroa Island of Maloelap Atoll. This nine-plane group, led by VB-6’s executive officer, Dick Best, included Dusty Kleiss of VS-6 and seven VB-6 pilots making their second attacks: Bud Kroeger, Harvey Lanham, Jim McCauley, Keith Holcomb, Bill Roberts, John Van Buren, and Jack Doherty. McCauley considered it grim going in without fighter protection when enemy fighters were reported to be in the air.⁵⁷

“When we got in from the morning raid, they wouldn’t let us get out of our flight gear or go below to talk things over,” Bud Kroeger said. “They were rushing the rearming and the refueling and shoving cold sandwiches at us.” Flight leader Best sent his gunner, Lee McHugh, racing to grab a better map of Taroa before they departed.⁵⁸

Best’s group climbed steadily while swinging to the east toward Maloelap. His engine was still having problems, and he could not climb above fourteen thousand feet. He led his flight down to the windward, wanting to get around the sun line in position before attacking.⁵⁹

About fifteen miles from the island, Jim McCauley signaled that he had spotted a section of Japanese fighters over Maloelap. These were the Mitsubishi A5M4 Type 96 “Claude” carrier fighters of the Chitose Air Group. Best also spotted the planes, and urged his pilots to level off in order to gain speed. He was due east of Taroa as he saw the Claudes turning toward his formation. We must attack at once before they can attack us, he decided. As he swung his group to the left, the fighters were now broad on his starboard bow, in naval jargon.⁶⁰

The Enterprise Dauntlesses went into two-hundred-knot power glides, as the four fighters closed from their above quarter. The ground gunners also commenced firing in a steady barrage on the nine American dive-bombers. Best pushed over around 1130, and landed his five-hundred-pound bomb right on a large hangar. The whole south side of the building erupted into smoke and flames. “I was just admiring my handiwork when, damn! A Japanese fighter came whizzing by shooting at me from the tail,” said Best. He found himself in a fierce dogfight as the balance of his pilots completed their bomb runs.⁶¹

Bud Kroeger hit a hangar with his big bomb and took out a lumber pile or stores pile with one of his small loads. Jim McCauley scored a five-hundred-pound bomb hit at the door of Taroa’s north hangar, adding to the general conflagration started by Best. Harvey Lanham dropped his hundred-pound bombs on an administrative building west of the landing field. Bill Roberts destroyed a twin-engine bomber with his salvo.⁶²

Dusty Kleiss had three fighters on his tail for ten miles, eluding his pursuers by splitting his flaps and chopping his throttle, before he pushed over from seventeen thousand feet. The Claudes flashed past him and Kleiss released his five-hundred-pound bomb and one wing bomb on a large hangar.⁶³

Bringing up the rear were John Van Buren and Ensign Jack Doherty, a young pilot fresh from Pensacola. Just prior to diving, Doherty flew under and just ahead of Van Buren. As they went over into their dives, Van Buren, spotting a Japanese fighter on the tail of Doherty’s 6-B-15, opened fire with his two fixed .50-caliber guns and was credited with shooting down the enemy plane. Doherty held doggedly to his dive and delivered his bomb on the flying field.

Bud Kroeger noted the Claudes attacking Doherty and Van Buren. As one of the fighters came across his nose, Kroeger pulled up with the speed he had left from his dive. He intended to make the Japanese pilot turn off before popping his SBD into cloud cover. Instead, the fighter pulled up directly in front of Kroeger, who stayed right on his tail until both aircraft were reaching their stalling points. Kroeger poured lead into the Mitsubishi and saw his target fall off on a wing. Dodging through the clouds, Kroeger emerged with another enemy fighter right in front of him. “I gave it to him as long as I could and then ducked back into the cloud once more,” he said.⁶⁴

Kroeger then announced to his gunner, Achilles Georgiou, that he was going back in to drop his last wing bomb. I’ve been training for years for just this situation and I don’t plan to go home without unloading it, Kroeger thought. Noting that Taroa Field was bounded by two large cloud formations, he decided to pop out of one side, deliver his bomb, and then zoom back into the other. Kroeger made his drop on what he deemed to be either a large barracks or a storehouse.⁶⁵

During pullout, the planes were engaged by a low-level fighter patrol. In their defensive maneuvering, the Dauntlesses were unable to make an effective rendezvous. “We all got jumped on that hop and got shot up,” said McCauley. The action broke up into individual dogfights. Gunner Allen Brost called out to his pilot, Van Buren, that fighters were approaching from astern. Their slow pullout speed allowed the fighters to catch them quickly. Brost got off only four shots before his gun jammed. In the process of standing to clear the jam, he was shot through the left arm by a bullet that cut a nerve and a tendon. He could not raise the arm, which streamed blood down across his hand.⁶⁶

Yet Brost somehow managed to unjam his gun. As he took his seat again, more fighters were blazing away at his tail. Using only his right hand, he steadied his .30-caliber and poured lead into the second fighter following his SBD. “I emptied the gun on him and he went down,” Brost said. He quickly reloaded with his right hand and began firing again at the persistent fighters.

Brost managed to score more hits on a second fighter until it began passing underneath their Dauntless. He called up to Van Buren to nose over to take a shot. Van Buren squeezed off several rounds until the fighter moved out of range. Brost turned his attention to a third fighter which remained on their tail. “I took a little better aim on him,” he said. “I hit him and he turned right around and went the other way. He had enough.”

The SBD pilots made defensive use of the excellent cloud layer that lay between two thousand and four thousand feet. Achilles Georgiou correctly believed that his attackers looked like old Type 97 fighter planes—often mistaken by U.S. pilots to be German Messerschmitts. His pilot, Bud Kroeger, jinked desperately to throw off the aim of two pursuing fighters. “Each time they made a firing run, I gave them the poorest possible shot,” he said. “I was plenty scared and really kicking that plane around.” Georgiou opened up with his single .30-caliber, claiming one of the Japanese planes, which he saw spiral away toward the ocean. A second fighter in the meantime riddled Georgiou and Kroeger’s Dauntless.⁶⁷

Bullets punctured their fuel tanks. One slug entered the front cockpit, hit the dashboard, and ricocheted off the plate containing the ignition switch. The bullet tore through Kroeger’s left foot, breaking several bones and splattering blood throughout his cockpit. Georgiou knew his pilot had been hit but had no idea how serious it was. Kroeger felt a sharp initial pain but then lost all feeling in his foot as it spurted blood. “I’d lost my helmet, goggles, and earphones in the mess, and the airplane was riddled,” he said. Kroeger found that his radio, controls, and engine were still okay, so he dived for the clouds and managed to elude the other Japanese fighters.⁶⁸

• • •

Jack Doherty was less fortunate. The son of Irish immigrants who had settled into the projects of St. Francis Parish in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Doherty had joined the Navy in 1940 as an aviation cadet while his younger brother became a seaman on the cruiser San Francisco. Clean-cut with a serious manner, Doherty was said by Dick Best to possess “a real go-get-the-bastards attitude” toward war. Off duty, Best found the young man to be just as fun-loving as most of the others. The only problem Best had with his junior pilot had been when Doherty was caught by the shore patrol running nude out of the old Moana Hotel in Waikiki. Doherty’s shipboard roommate, Tony Schneider, said his friend had “decided to go skinny dipping on the beach behind the old Moana and then run bare-ass through the lobby.”⁶⁹

Bombing Six’s exec had covered for Doherty when the young pilot was called before Lieutenant Commander Hollingsworth, and never had another problem from him. “He never swore in public, maintained a sharp uniform, and stopped to do the sign of the cross before slipping into his plane,” Best remembered.

Doherty and gunner Will Hunt failed to return from their second strike. Their SBD was last seen twisting and turning under fire from three Nakajimas as Doherty raced frantically into cloud cover. Squadron mates heard his last radio call: “These goddamn Japs will never get me!”⁷⁰

Dusty Kleiss fought through AA fire after making his drops and then was jumped by three fighters before he could reach cloud cover. One fighter came in close and offered his rear gunner an excellent shot. Johnny Snowden, however, had used all his ammunition while strafing Taroa and was in the process of reloading. The fighters’ guns punctured Kleiss’s two right wing tanks and nicked Snowden’s right leg with shrapnel. Dusty pulled into a tight wingover and traded short-range head-on shots. The Claude pilot quickly turned and headed back for base, as did his two wingmen. Dusty was greatly relieved: He had only fifty rounds left in his forward guns.⁷¹

His SBD was a mess. Dusty watched gasoline stream from his starboard fuel tanks until they were empty. His bigger concern was with the oil spraying onto his Plexiglas windshield from his shattered engine cylinder. Kleiss was forced to stand periodically and wipe the misty oil from his windshield during the return flight to the Enterprise.

Dick Best felt the Japanese fighters were largely reluctant to finish off their prey. Their longer-range sniping had caused some damage, but more determined fighter pilots could have scored more kills. The first fighter to buzz Best’s tail overshot him as he pulled out of his dive. The Claude then turned and made two more runs on his SBD. A former fighter pilot of Lexington’s VF-2, Best dodged his opponent by employing his fighter tactics. As the Japanese plane approached, he pulled up with all the speed he had built up and turned in to his opponent with guns blazing. At length, his violent maneuvers gave rear gunner Lee McHugh a good shot that produced black smoke from the enemy aircraft.⁷²

Best did not witness the kill. To McHugh’s disappointment, he therefore did not let his gunner take credit for it. The second fighter was less aggressive as Best continued sharp countermaneuvers over Maloelap’s harbor. He then ducked into a cumulus formation, and immediately turned sharply ninety degrees to break free in a new location. Best dodged in and out of the clouds several times until the fighter was gone.⁷³

As he headed north to clear the lagoon, Best spotted a big gas plume spurting out of his right wing. A lucky and wild shot must have gotten that one, he thought. He had intended to go back to Wotje to use the two bombs that he had not released, but the brush with Japanese fighters and the newly discovered fuel leak ended these thoughts.

“Mr. Best, we’re on fire!” yelled McHugh.

Best glanced quickly to the starboard wing, where McHugh was pointing. “Dammit, McHugh!” he hollered. “That’s our gasoline leaking. Don’t you ever scare me like that again. I’m using that right tank.”

Best’s strike group had lost Jack Doherty and suffered two other airmen wounded—pilot Ed Kroeger in the left foot and gunner Allen Brost in the left forearm. Three planes—those of Best, Kroeger, and Van Buren—had sustained numerous bullet holes and punctured fuel tanks. Kleiss’s VS-6 plane had bullet holes punctured in both right-hand fuel tanks, and other holes. After landing, Best demanded that any further strike groups being sent out should do so only with appropriate fighter escorts. He and McHugh were credited with destroying two Japanese fighters, and Best would receive, months later, the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions.⁷⁴

Gunner Achilles Georgiou was concerned, uncertain how Kroeger would be able to land their Dauntless with a crippled left foot. Kroeger reached the landing circle but found that Enterprise was not yet ready to take him aboard. As he circled around, Georgiou penciled him a note that read, “What do you think you are? Superman? Let’s land!” Kroeger was waved off by LSO Robin Lindsey on his first pass. His second approach was rather wild and fast, without brakes or hydraulic controls. He had just enough fluid left to let the flaps down with the use of his hand pump. Kroeger struggled to ride the brakes with his mangled foot after his tail hook was disengaged from the arresting wire. Georgiou motioned to the flight crew to help stop the plane. Then he scrambled from his rear cockpit to see that Kroeger was properly assisted to sick bay for attention.⁷⁵

Dick Best was in the ready room when he heard that Jack Doherty’s SBD did not return. “Every loss hurt, as it rightly should,” he said. Skipper Holly Hollingsworth wrote out a citation and personal letter for Doherty’s parents. The lost pilot’s roommate, Tony Schneider, added his own letter to the family describing their friendship. “I cursed, I cried a little; then I calmed down,” Schneider remembered. “If you allowed yourself to go numb over the deaths of your friends, you’d join them.” He had lost another early roommate, Manny Gonzalez, weeks earlier over Pearl Harbor, and knew their occupation came with a harsh necessity. “We said our good-byes; then we got back into the war,” Schneider said.⁷⁶

Allen Brost was hustled to sick bay and remained under care until Enterprise made port again. Back at Pearl Harbor, his left arm was operated on, but the nerve and tendon damage was enough to put the VB-6 gunner out of commission. He was shipped to California for another operation and remained on limited shore duty for the rest of the war.⁷⁷

• • •

Forty-five minutes after Lieutenant Best’s Taroa strikers departed, Enterprise launched a fourth bombing mission of eight SBDs to strike Wotje Island and its shipping. CEAG Brigham Young took off at 1115 leading Andy Anderson of VB-6 and six pilots from VS-6—Earl Gallaher, Cleo Dobson, Reggie Rutherford, Norm West, Perry Teaff, and Ben Troemel. They took off in company with nine torpedo bombers of Torpedo Six.

Ten miles southeast of Wotje, Young turned the lead over to Lieutenant Gallaher. Scouting Six’s acting commander started a high-speed approach at 1215. Five miles south of the island, he spotted a large cargo ship anchored near the shore inside the lagoon. Gallaher and his four pilots claimed four hits and one near miss. Lieutenant Commander Young, with wingmen Teaff and Troemel, bombed a building on the south side of Wotje. Gallaher’s division climbed back to eight thousand feet and made secondary dives to strafe targets of opportunity and unload their hundred-pound wing bombs on the shipping.

Torpedo Six’s nine TBDs, led by squadron XO Lieutenant Lem Massey, encountered intense and sustained AA fire. It was a new experience for ARM2c Ronald Graetz, rear gunner for Ensign Severin Rombach. His plane had been given a “down” for the first strike of the morning. Now Romback was roaring over a Japanese merchant ship’s bow. Graetz saw a gunner on the deck starting to swing his weapon toward his plane and unleashed a long burst of machine-gun bullets to discourage the Japanese AA man. “I really did not feel that I was nervous, at any time, over the flight, but I used the ‘P-tube’ and relieved myself four times on the way out and five times on the way back,” said Graetz. “I guess I was more nervous than I had realized.”⁷⁸

The cargo ship attacked by Gallaher’s dive-bombers was burning fiercely in Wotje’s harbor when this Enterprise strike finally turned for home. All eight planes were recovered at 1315 without damage. Cleo Dobson, having avoided Japanese fighters, felt this mission was not nearly as exciting as his first morning hop to Roi.⁷⁹

Perry Teaff received ribbing from his buddies for engaging two Claudes near the Marshalls. He had immediately headed in pursuit of the Japanese fighters, expecting fellow VS-6 pilots Dobson and Norm West to join him. Teaff allowed one of the fighters to come closer to him as he led his opponent into a gradually tighter, lower, and slower turn. The Claude eventually plunged toward the water when last seen by Teaff. “Perry was a super pilot,” said his roommate, Dusty Kleiss. Back on Enterprise, Dobson quizzed his buddy on why he would undertake such a “stupid” maneuver.⁸⁰

“Why didn’t you follow?” Teaff asked. “We had them outnumbered!”

• • •

Ed Anderson had never worked harder in his life than he did on February 1. He had been waiting since the Pearl Harbor attack for his chance to become qualified as an aviation gunner for Bombing Six. Instead, on January 9 he had been reassigned from ordnance work on the SBDs to fill a vacancy in the flight deck plane-handling crews.⁸¹

He had since spent long days helping to push aircraft from one end of the flight deck to another to help facilitate the countless takeoffs and landings. His days began at 0330, and would often stretch to 1930 or later. He rarely had more than two hours off on any given day. “Throughout the day, every time flight quarters go, you are constantly harassed, bullied, cursed at and generally kicked around by the chief, Jew Prather,” he wrote in his diary.

Anderson’s flight deck boss, ACMM Vern A. Prather, worked his plane handlers at a brutal pace for good reason. On February 1, his handlers’ efforts made the difference in keeping the Big E’s planes going back out time and time again against the Marshalls. His young sailors like Anderson rearmed, refueled, and repositioned planes continuously during a fourteen-hour stretch. “I can honestly say that no one on our ship worked as hard,” Anderson wrote in his diary.

Ed, who had just celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday several days prior, had been encouraged by his girlfriend Margie’s latest letter. He resolved to record more of his daily events in his little diary, though he found it almost impossible to do so on most nights. The temperature in his enlisted bunk area was always above a hundred degrees, making sweat pour from his face and hands while he was writing. Most nights, he would awaken to find his sack and pillow dripping wet.⁸²

When he was finally relieved of flight deck duty on February 1, he was too exhausted to even write. “I thought my legs would give out, but somehow they kept going,” he said. Ed finally enjoyed two sandwiches and tried to relax, his thoughts turning to liberty back at Pearl Harbor. Deep down, he felt damned proud to have done his part in America’s first offensive against Japanese forces.

Enterprise at last prepared to hightail it out of the action zone. Ed Anderson and Chief Prather’s other plane handlers spotted the last of the returning SBDs forward on the flight deck. Bombing Six skipper Holly Hollingsworth believed that any further strikes might be pushing their luck this day. On the bridge, Holly gave Admiral Halsey a play-by-play recap of his second strike mission, then asked, “Admiral, don’t you think it’s about time we got the hell out of here?”⁸³

“My boy, I’ve been thinking the same thing myself,” Halsey replied. His task force had circled for some ten hours in the same square of ocean, but he now directed his group to retire north at thirty knots. Only fifteen minutes after Brigham Young’s last SBDs had returned, Enterprise’s radar picked up a troubling blip. From Taroa’s battered airfield, the Japanese had sent out five big twin-engined Type 96 “Nell” bombers.

Fighting Six Wildcats made contact with the big bombers about fifteen miles from Enterprise, but gun failures allowed the Nells to race past the U.S. fighters at 250 knots. At 1338, the Japanese planes released their bombs from three thousand feet while every ship in the task force sent up heavy flak. Captain George Murray handled his big carrier spectacularly, throwing her into a hard turn to port that saved his flight deck. The nearest 250-kilogram load exploded only thirty yards to port, sending fragments tearing into Enterprise.

One damaged Nell bomber, piloted by Lieutenant Kazuo Nakai, suddenly turned sharply left and circled back toward Enterprise. Nakai was apparently intent upon crashing his crippled plane into the aircraft crowded forward on the Big E’s flight deck—thus making him the first Japanese kamikaze pilot faced by the U.S. Navy in World War II. Antiaircraft guns blazed away at the Japanese bomber as it made a beeline toward Enterprise’s flight deck.⁸⁴

Aviation Machinist’s Mate Third Class Bruno Peter Gaido decided he must do something. The young member of Scouting Six’s flight deck plane-handling crew had watched the Nell bomber attack from the flight deck catwalk. Lieutenant Nakai’s crippled bomber was heading for his ship, so Gaido sprinted across the deck to help. Willie West’s 6-S-5 was the rearmost Dauntless spotted forward, and Gaido leaped into the rear cockpit. He swung the .30-caliber machine gun toward the incoming Nell and began blasting away at the massive aircraft.

AMM3c Bruno Peter Gaido.

Admiral Halsey and dozens of others watched Gaido pour lead into the flaming Nell. His fire was perfect; his bullets may well have killed the fanatical pilot. Enterprise was saved by Gaido’s actions and a violent turn to starboard by Captain Davis. Nakai’s big bomber failed to score a direct hit, but its right wing sliced right through the fuselage of the Scouting Six SBD from which Gaido was firing. The Nell’s wing skidded into the port catwalk, while West’s broken Dauntless was knocked toward the after edge of the flight deck. Gaido stood in the SBD’s torn tail section and depressed the .30-caliber gun to hammer tracers into the wreckage of the Japanese bomber as it hit the ocean astern of Enterprise.⁸⁵

The flight deck crews sprang into action and extinguished the gasoline fires. Lieutenant Dickinson and others raced from the VS-6 ready room to the flight deck. They gaped in awe at the sheared-off SBD. There was Bruno Gaido, standing in the plane’s severed tail, looking around for something else to shoot.⁸⁶

In Bombing Six’s ready room, Dick Best had realized how serious the situation was up on deck when he heard .50-caliber machine-gun fire. They must be in our laps by now, he thought. At that moment, Enterprise had gone into a violent turn, followed by an explosion and a shudder above. Holly Hollingsworth beside him gasped. “My God, that one got us!”⁸⁷

When Best looked around the ready room, he found himself seated alone. The pilots were pressed up against the rear bulkhead for protection. The only exception was Tony Schneider, who had his helmet over his face with his feet up, fast asleep.

After the action, Admiral Halsey called Gaido to the bridge and asked him his name.⁸⁸

“What is your rate, Bruno?” the admiral then asked.

“Aviation Machinist’s Mate Third Class, sir,” said Gaido.

“Well, Bruno, you are now Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class,” said Halsey with a smile.

• • •

That afternoon, Dusty Kleiss and other Dauntless airmen visited sick bay. There, the staff dispensed “medicinal” bourbon to those aviators needing a remedy to calm their nerves and promote sound rest. Kleiss retired to his stateroom to resume a letter to sweetheart Jean Mochon. “I wish I could tell you some of the places I’ve been and what we’ve been doing,” he wrote. “But just now all I can say is that our men have got more guts and our gunners have a better eye than those of any other country.”⁸⁹

Halsey was thrilled with his Enterprise pilots’ performance and handed out awards liberally for those involved in the first carrier strikes of the Pacific War. Bombing Six skipper Holly Hollingsworth was awarded a Navy Cross. The Distinguished Flying Cross was given to pilots Best, Doherty, Blitch, Kroeger, McCauley, and Van Buren of VB-6, and to Dobson and Kleiss of VS-6. Air Medals were later awarded to pilots Deacon, Dickinson, Donnell, Fogg, Patriarca, Rutherford, Seid, Stone, Teaff, Troemel, and West of VS-6, and to pilots Anderson, Check, Halsey, Holcomb, Lanham, Penland, Roberts, Schneider, Smith, Vandivier, Walters, and Weber of VB-6. Air Medals were later awarded to some of the rear gunners, including Allen Brost, Ed Garaudy, Jim Murray, and Harold Heard of Bombing Six.

Enterprise’s Kwajalein attack had sunk one transport and damaged nine other ships. Many aircraft were destroyed, and buildings and facilities had been hit. Two Wildcats and five SBDs, along with their crews, had been lost in action. The long-term effects to Japan’s military efforts from this raid were minimal, but it marked the first serious attack on the Japanese since the war had started. Enterprise proceeded to race clear of the Marshalls area as other Japanese aircraft and submarines attempted, without success, to strike back at the American carrier force. Dick Best and others ruefully termed their ship’s hasty retreat “hauling ass with Halsey.”⁹⁰