SIX

Island Raiders

“We are about the luckiest people ever,” Cleo Dobson confided in his diary. Much of Enterprise’s time retiring from the Marshalls was under weather so foul that the daily scouting hops were canceled for two days. The rains prevented the Japanese from finding the U.S. task forces again, and gave the aviators some much-enjoyed rest. During these two days, Dobson noted that the Dauntless crews had plenty of time to “swap lies about each other’s experiences.”1

Yorktown’s air group had carried out its own surprise attacks against Japanese installations in the Marshall/Gilbert islands on February 1 at the same time the Enterprise SBDs were in action. The Yorktown aviators damaged two merchant ships and destroyed shore installations and aircraft, at the cost of two SBDs and four TBDs lost. The Enterprise task force steamed into Pearl Harbor on February 5, freshly returned from the first American carrier offensive of the Pacific War. Evidence of the morale boost the raid had provided was abundant as workmen and sailors on other ships cheered the force. The Enterprise Air Group flew in ahead of the carrier, with Earl Gallaher leading VS-6 as its acting skipper, following the loss of Hal Hopping over Roi.

From Ford Island, Chief Jim Murray watched Task Force 8 make its triumphant entrance flying huge battle flags. Ships in the harbor blew their whistles and sirens. Even the Enterprise airmen ashore cheered for “Wild Bill” Halsey and the Big E. “What a sight and what a choked-up feeling it gave you,” said Murray. For plane-pusher Ed Anderson, it was the thrill of a lifetime. “As we passed each ship in the harbor, the crews on deck would give us three cheers and we would return them,” he wrote in his diary.2

Two of the wounded pilots, Bud Kroeger and Willie West, were put on board the hospital ship Solace for surgery. Doctors removed most of the shrapnel from Kroeger’s foot but were concerned about his ability to fly again. West’s bullet wound was even more serious. “The slug hit him at a spot awfully close to vital organs,” said Irvin McPherson of VT-6. “Half an inch lower or half an inch more to the left, it would have been fatal. Even so, it took out a big hunk of flesh in its exit.”3

While Dick Best enjoyed a brief reunion with his wife and daughter, other men endulged in a little luxury for a change. Flight personnel were allowed to go ashore for three days’ R & R at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, a plush rental on Waikiki Beach that had been leased by the Navy for the war’s duration for the exclusive use of naval aviators and submariners in between combat cruises. Known affectionately as the “Pink Palace,” the Royal Hawaiian could accommodate 150 officers and a thousand enlisted men at a time. Those beds really feel good, thought pilot Cleo Dobson. Big, deep mattresses with no pitch or roll. Jim Murray enjoyed the fact that guests of the Royal Hawaiian did not have to be off the streets until 2200. Ship and shore station personnel had to report back by 1800. Ed Anderson feasted on a steak dinner with a buddy at the Wagon Wheel restaurant and drank gallons of pineapple juice. Joe Cupples and Jack Leaming of Scouting Six shared a room that normally rented for $78 per night. Leaming spent an evening enjoying music and drinks with a young lady he had previously met in Hawaii.4

Dusty Kleiss and his roommate Perry Teaff made the most of the luxurious Pink Palace. Since their abrupt thrust into the war two months prior, there had been no time to really relax. Now Kleiss was content to just smoke cigarettes, sip a drink, and stare out past the palm trees at the calm Pacific surf off Waikiki. When you have the chance to relax, you must do it, he thought. The return to combat would come quickly enough.

Enterprise underwent normal upkeep in port as her air group operated ashore. The pilots found a cure for the prevailing rationing of liquor by making scouting hops to other island bases to draw their weekly rations. Replacement SBDs were drawn from the spare dive-bombers operating from Oahu to bolster the losses suffered during the strike on the Marshalls. Scouting Six had suffered the most severe losses during the early months of war, including four aircrews killed over Roi.

Lieutenant Gallaher fortunately found a surplus of pilots to fill his vacant roster slots. From Yorktown’s Scouting Five, he received Lieutenant Charlie Ware and Ensign Bill Hall on temporary assignment to VS-6. Soft-spoken and genuinely likable, twenty-eight-year-old Hall was the son of a mining family from the little Utah boomtown of Storrs. Although slender and only five-foot-five in height, he was athletic: He had excelled on the Redlands University track team and was a bantam-weight boxer. The other side of red-haired, blue-eyed Bill Hall lay in his performing arts abilities. He had majored in music at his California college and was teaching music when he joined the Navy in 1938 to take part in the naval aviation cadet training program.

Thirty-year-old Charles Rollins Ware had fallen in love with military service while in the ROTC at Knoxville High School. Unable to obtain a congressional appointment from Tennessee to the Naval Academy, he had studied for six months to pass the entrance exams. Ware joined the Navy as a seaman, second class, and one year later received his “at large” appointment to the academy. A crack shot on the Annapolis rifle team, he had graduated in 1934 and first served on the battleship Texas.5

Lieutenant Charlie Ware.

Charlie Ware was a dashing bachelor who had his own secondhand Buick for escorting his dates around the Pensacola area during his flight training in 1940. He became the second-oldest pilot of Scouting Six—with a receding hairline to go with more than seven years of military service—when he joined Earl Gallaher’s lineup in Hawaii. The flight experience of Ware and Hall, both fresh from action against the Gilbert Islands on February 1, was much appreciated by Gallaher to offset his losses.

Gallaher found other pilots in Hawaii to rebuild his unit. Bombing Squadron Three had been cast upon the beach in January following torpedo damage to their carrier Saratoga. Ensign Austin “Bud” Merrill, who had entered flight training in 1940 while at Long Beach Junior College in California, was eager to get into action. He, his former Saratoga roommate Bob Campbell, and Ensign Alden Hanson answered Gallaher’s call for volunteers from VB-3 to fill in for Enterprise’s next war cruise.

Scouting Six received ten replacement SBDs, all in need of new guns and overhauls. Squadron gunnery officer Cleo Dobson found this “a hell of a job.” He noted in his diary, “Oh, well. That’s the Navy. Since we got a 48-hour rest they are going to get it back by working us 25 hours a day.”6

Holly Hollingsworth’s Bombing Six was similarly busy. His unit received several more twin .30-caliber gun mounts, which were installed in the section leaders’ planes. The squadron’s metalsmiths equipped all eighteen SBDs with armor plating for the pilots’ seat backs. Jim Murray was pleased to see the installation of enough ZB homing devices to complete VB-6’s requirements. In terms of personnel changes, Bombing Six lost Allen Brost due to his injuries, and Dick Best’s regular gunner, Lee McHugh, was transferred to flight training at NAS Pensacola. Ed Anderson was excited to be moved from his plane handler duties back into squadron radio work. He managed to make two hops on Oahu as a passenger, which gave him hope that he was one step closer to regular flight duty.7

When Enterprise sailed from Pearl again on Valentine’s Day, Halsey’s carrier force was redesignated as Task Force 16. The original plans called for Enterprise to rendezvous with Admiral Fletcher’s Yorktown force to conduct raids on Wake Island and Eniwetok, but Yorktown was soon detailed to join Lexington for raids on coastal positions in New Guinea. Instead, Halsey’s force received orders to proceed independently for strikes against Wake Island. Enterprise sailors cheered the orders, as they remembered the Marine pilots they had delivered to Wake in December—men who had fallen when the Japanese captured the island.8

Admiral Halsey earned high marks with his aviators by halting his whole task force on February 18 to search for a downed Torpedo Six crew. Lieutenant (j.g.) Thomas Eversole had become disoriented in a weather front and ditched his TBD some sixty miles from the carrier. The next morning, Ensign Bob Campbell made contact with their life raft, and the destroyer Dunlap was sent to fetch the downed men. Dusty Kleiss, best friends with Eversole, flew out with Cleo Dobson to help lead the destroyer to Eversole’s crew with smoke bombs.9

Upon returning to the Big E, Dobson was called to the bridge to see Admiral Halsey. For his work in helping to direct the destroyer, Dobson was pleased to receive a “very well done.” Halsey’s compassion for making every effort to locate the downed airmen was uplifting to everyone who faced the possibility of being lost at sea.10

Two days of bad weather helped to mask TF-16’s approach to Wake Island.

Flight quarters sounded at 0430 on February 24.

The hot, humid air quickly created problems for the pilots. The airplanes’ rapidly turning propeller blades produced tremendous friction, condensing the moist air. Clouds of light bluish vapors spiraled backward and enveloped each plane. “Sometimes it was a problem because in the early morning darkness, the flame from the exhaust was reflected by it,” explained Jack Leaming. “This restricts the vision of the pilot and may disorient him.”11

Shortly before 0600, the first CAP Wildcats began launching. Behind them on deck were spotted eighteen SBDs of VS-6, another eighteen from VB-6, and Brigham Young’s CEAG bomber. Each Dauntless was loaded with a five-hundred-pounder and two wing bombs. Third division leader Dick Dickinson recalled the disorientation as he awaited his turn to taxi forward: “I was just peering into nothing, preparing to roll off the equivalent of a fast-moving six-story building out in the middle of the Pacific; and I couldn’t even see the Pacific. Actually, each of us was manufacturing his own fog.”12

Earl Gallaher, as the new skipper of the scouts, was first to launch and therefore had the shortest takeoff distance. He couldn’t see a thing through the eerie halo effect. The signal officer pointed toward the bow with his flag, and Gallaher shifted to instruments. He had never launched from a carrier flying solely on instruments.13

Scouting Six (VS-6) Tactical Organization

Wake Island Raid: February 24, 1942

FIRST DIVISION

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-S-1

Lt. Wilmer Earl Gallaher

ARM1c Thomas Edward Merritt

6-S-2

Lt. (jg) Perry Lee Teaff*

RM3c Edgar Phelan Jinks*

6-S-3

Ens. William Edward Hall

AMM1c Bruno Peter Gaido

6-S-16

Lt. Charles Rollins Ware

ARM2c William Henry Stambaugh

6-S-7

Lt. (jg) Hart Dale Hilton

ARM2c Jack Leaming

6-S-8

Ens. Percy Wendell Forman**

AMM1c John Edwin Winchester**

SECOND DIVISION

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-S-10

Lt. Reginald Rutherford

RM3c Earl Edward Howell

6-S-11

Lt. (jg) Norman Jack Kleiss

RM3c John Warren Snowden

6-S-12

Ens. Robert Keith Campbell

AMM2c Milton Wayne Clark

THIRD DIVISION

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-S-4

Lt. Clarence Earle Dickinson Jr.

RM1c Joseph Ferdinand DeLuca

6-S-5

Lt. (jg) John Norman West

RM3c Alfred R. Stitzelberger

6-S-6

Ens. Alden Wilbur Hanson

AMM2c Floyd Delbert Adkins

6-S-13

Lt. Frank Anthony Patriarca

ARM1c Ferdinand Joseph Cupples

6-S-14

Lt. (jg) Edward Thorpe Deacon

RM3c Louis Dale Hansen

6-S-19

Ens. Milford Austin Merrill

AOM2c Thurman Randolph Swindell

PHOTOGRAPHIC PLANES

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-S-17

Ens. Cleo John Dobson

RM3c Roy L. Hoss

6-S-9

Lt. (jg) Benjamin Henry Troemel

RM2c William Hart Bergin

6-S-15

Ens. Reid Wenworth Stone

AM3c Erwin G. Bailey

*Crashed on takeoff; only injured pilot recovered.

**Shot down over Wake; aviators taken POW and executed.

Perry Teaff in 6-S-2 was second to launch, and the blue exhaust fog foiled his vision. His SBD’s left wheel dropped into Enterprise’s port-side catwalk and his left wing struck a five-inch gun mount that catapulted his plane over the carrier’s side. Plane guard destroyer Blue raced in and used her searchlights to help recover the crew from the sinking Dauntless. Sailors hauled on board Teaff, whose face had been severely injured in the crash. Rear gunner Edgar Jinks, who had survived the Japanese attacks on his plane on December 7, was not as fortunate. Although Jinks was heard calling out in the darkness, Blue’s sailors were unable to find him. Teaff was given swift medical attention, but the crash cost him his right eye.14

The loss of Teaff’s SBD created a delay in the launching process. Gallaher flew circles alone in the soupy weather, hoping to never again experience a launch like this one. Finally, the air group resumed launching at a slower pace. The last TBD of Torpedo Six’s first division lifted off at 0647.15

Commander Young led his fifty-one planes toward Wake Island, with VT-6 lumbering ahead in the lead. For a change, the torpedo bombers flew high, since they each carried a dozen hundred-pound bombs instead of a torpedo. “The result of that was to relieve the pressure of my head cold for a time, but drive it right back in when we descended,” Irvin McPherson remembered. The dive-bombers climbed to eighteen thousand feet during the 110-mile flight to the prearranged deployment area just west of the Japanese-held, arrowhead-shaped island.16

• • •

As Holly Hollingsworth approached Wake, he saw a rapidly expanding AA barrage more than twenty miles ahead. It took an hour from departure from the task force for the carrier planes to arrive over Wake’s main island and its two small additional islands, Peale and Wilkes. The long delay in launching and rendezvous caused the Enterprise strike group to arrive over Wilkes after the heavy cruisers Northampton and Salt Lake City had started shelling the island.

At 0750, Brigham Young radioed to his air group, “Attack. Attack.” Holly Hollingsworth took his lead division of VB-6 in first. He focused on targets on Peale: a radio station, seaplane ramps, any aircraft present, or an adjacent oil tank. Gunner Jim Murray watched with satisfaction as the skipper’s three bombs blasted huge holes right in the middle of the runway.17

John Van Buren, fifth to dive, had a new rear gunner, Achilles Georgiou. His own gunner, Allen Brost, had been seriously wounded during the Marshalls raids, while Georgiou’s normal pilot, Ed Kroeger, was still recovering from a bullet wound in the foot. Georgiou saw their big bomb create a large hole in the runway. The antiaircraft fire had intensified by this point, and the gunner was relieved when his new pilot opted to clear the area.

Hollingsworth’s men destroyed a four-engined seaplane moored just south of a pier on Peale Island. Lloyd Smith made a glide-bombing attack that destroyed a second seaplane on a barge. Scouting Six began hitting Wake Island’s airfield as the first division of VB-6 was still diving down on Peale. Earl Gallaher plunged from twelve thousand feet in an easterly direction with his first division.

Reggie Rutherford’s second division of VS-6 dropped their bombs in a ripple effect from altitudes between four thousand and two thousand feet. Dusty Kleiss hit an ammunition magazine and started a fire with his load. Dick Dickinson, leading the third division, created another explosion when he dropped on what was supposed to be an underground hangar or storehouse. The scouts then strafed Japanese gun positions along Wake’s eastern shores.18

Dickinson’s “tail-end Charlie” pilot was Bud Merrill, one of the VB-3 replacements new to Scouting Six. He was unsatisfied with his dive and opted to hold his bomb. Merrill pulled up and went back up by himself to make another dive from ten thousand feet. This is crazy, he thought as he made his solo bombing run.19

Cleo Dobson, Ben Troemel, and Reid Stone—flying the three VS-6 photo planes—joined Brigham Young and VT-6 for a composite bombing attack. They dropped their bombs in salvo, and Dobson was credited with blowing up an oil tank. The Dauntless trio then proceeded to make a mapping run across the island as their rear seat men snapped photos while under AA fire.

Some of the SBDs scoured the area for Japanese ships after making their initial drops. “We didn’t find an awful lot at Wake,” said VB-6’s Jim McCauley. Squadron mate Ensign Delbert “Pete” Halsey (no relationship to Admiral Halsey) had dropped his big bomb and was strafing gun positions while deciding upon where to unleash his small wing bombs. He came upon another of the four-engined Kawanishi Type 97 flying boats airborne about five miles east of Wake. Halsey opened up on his radio to report the big plane before attacking with his forward guns. The Kawanishi poured on the throttle, leaving Halsey to report to Commander Young that he couldn’t catch up.20

Young radioed to the fighter division leader, Lieutenant Commander Clarence Wade “Mac” McClusky, “Take that seaplane, Mac.” McClusky and two of his wingmen caught the Kawanishi near the U.S. cruisers off Wilkes Island and exploded it in dramatic fashion at 0835. Debris from the violent blast left a chunk of shrapnel from the Japanese seaplane embedded in the left wing of Lieutenant Roger Mehle’s F4F.21

Rutherford and Dickinson’s VS-6 divisions found a small, 120-foot patrol vessel near their rendezvous point. “We hit him with everything left,” said Dusty Kleiss. He had two hundred-pound wing bombs remaining, but Kleiss rushed the job of aiming and missed the violently maneuvering patrol boat with both. He swung back around to blast the little vessel’s waterline and bridge with his forward .50-caliber guns, as did many other excited SBD pilots.22

“We weren’t taking turns,” said Dickinson. “It was everybody for himself and devil take the hindmost. The wonder is we didn’t shoot each other.” The patrol vessel was left abandoned, spewing oil and turning in aimless circles. As his pilot Dale Hilton made two strafing runs on the boat, gunner Jack Leaming thought, Those poor sons of bitches.23

U.S. surface vessels closed in later, sank the ship, and took four prisoners of war. For its part, Scouting Six had damaged Wake’s runway, destroyed four magazines or underground hangars, shot up the patrol vessel, and also demolished several small buildings and one coastal defense gun on the island’s eastern edge. Three VS-6 planes suffered bullet holes—those flown by Gallaher, Rutherford, and Pat Patriarca.

Ensign Bill Hall saw another VS-6 Dauntless smoking badly upon retirement to the east of Wake. It was Percy Forman’s 6-S-8. When Hall approached, he could not see any holes in Forman’s fuel tanks or other vital areas, but his plane had obviously been crippled by antiaircraft fire. Forman was never seen again by his shipmates. He ditched his damaged SBD near Wake and both airmen were captured by the Japanese. Forman and his gunner, AMM2c John Winchester, were interrogated on Wake and then placed on board the freighter Chichibu Maru for transportation back to Japan. The VS-6 aviators perished when the U.S. submarine Gar torpedoed and sank the merchant ship on March 13.24

Three SBDs of Bombing Six were also damaged. Lloyd Smith’s 6-B-3 was hit in the right wing and fuselage, and Pete Halsey sustained several bullets through the left wing of his borrowed Scouting Six Dauntless. Tony Schneider’s 6-B-6 took armor-piercing .50-caliber bullets in the belly and floorboards of the rear cockpit, shattering Glenn Holden’s radio transmitter and tearing holes in the thin metal shelf above it. His protective head plate deflected another bullet that might well have killed Schneider. The work of the VB-6 metalsmiths at Pearl Harbor in installing the new armor plates had already proven its value. A crewman who inspected Tony’s SBD later handed him a .50-caliber slug that had come to rest in the floorboard of his plane.

By 0945, the fifty planes of the Enterprise Air Group began to land back on their ship. Scouting Six had lost another two SBDs in the Wake strike. Three of Earl Gallaher’s aviators were dead or prisoners of war, and pilot Perry Teaff faced life with only one eye. Cleo Dobson’s diary entry for the Wake strike summed up the VS-6 losses: “It looks like the scouts take it on the nose every time. . . . All told we have lost nine pilots and eleven rear seat men since Dec. 7. From that figure, we can expect only about 21/2 months left and by God I don’t like it. I am ready to turn in my suit.”25

• • •

Task Force 16 retired under cover of a sheltering rainstorm as Commander Young’s aviators detailed the results of their strike to Halsey’s and Murray’s staffs. The majority of Wake’s fuel tanks had been destroyed, effectively crippling enemy efforts from this island for some time.

The bombardment force rejoined Enterprise on February 25 as the carrier withdrew northeastward from Wake. That evening, Bill Halsey received an urgent message from his commander in chief, Nimitz: “Desirable to strike Marcus if you think it feasible.” The task force obligingly turned west toward lonely Marcus Island, located only a thousand miles from Tokyo.26

That afternoon, the destroyer Blue returned Perry Teaff back to Enterprise. Dusty Kleiss found that his buddy was taking it pretty well in spite of the crash that had cost him an eye. Teaff joked that he would get two new glass eyes, a “sporty” version for weekdays and a slightly bloodshot one for the “morning after.” Cleo Dobson visited Teaff in sick bay and also found his buddy to be in jovial spirits. Teaff’s first comment to him was, “Dobbie, do you think a one-eyed farmer can plow a straight furrow?”27

Bombing Six lost another Dauntless the following day. Leonard Check was taking off with a group of searchers for a two-hundred-mile scout on February 26. Unable to maintain altitude, he crashed into the sea a few hundred yards forward of Enterprise’s port bow.

Gunner Stuart Mason narrowly escaped. His belt was quite loose, a normal practice for Mason to remain free to move with his .30-caliber as needed. His body lurched forward upon impact with the ocean and the young aviator was knocked out. When he came to, his Dauntless had already bubbled under the water. He had practiced what he would do if his plane ever went into the drink. Mason unbuckled his belt, shucked his parachute, and reached the surface gasping for air.28

Plane guard destroyer Ralph Talbot raced in to rescue Check and Mason, but the tin can’s speed caused the ship to overshoot the men. Ralph Talbot’s skipper backed down but slid past them again. The destroyer pulled forward once more and thrice overshot the mark. An injured and frustrated radioman Mason finally shouted up, “Stop the son of a bitch and we will swim over!”

Ralph Talbot eventually hauled the SBD crew aboard, where Check moved in with the destroyer’s executive officer. Mason was given dry clothes, but began vomiting up all the ocean water he had ingested during his escape from the sinking Dauntless. The next morning, he had to be helped from his bunk. A big bruise covered his entire chest, and both thighs were bruised.29

Mason passed time on board Ralph Talbot by standing watches in the radio shack. Three days later, Check and Mason were returned to Enterprise as she refueled from a tanker. In addition, the destroyer sent over another recovered Big E fighter pilot, Ensign Joseph R. Daly, in exchange for the customary payment. Enterprise signaled that she would reciprocate with fifteen gallons of ice cream and two hundred pounds of bread once her airmen were transferred. “Send the ice cream and bread first, else no pilots and radioman,” Ralph Talbot’s skipper signaled back. The traditional payment was made and the three fliers found themselves back on board the Big E. “The flight surgeon grounded Check but didn’t bother to look at me,” said Mason. “Sometime later, I learned my sternum had been broken.”30

Enterprise headed for the 740-acre island of Marcus during the closing days of February. Halsey intended to launch a strike group against the Japanese base from 175 miles away on the morning of March 4. Few of the aviators had any idea where Marcus Island was located. “Wish we knew how many fighters and AA they have there,” Dusty Kleiss penned in his diary, “or if they have a landing field. Wish we had a spy system.”31

Jim Murray listened to the scuttlebutt running through his Bombing Six enlisted gunners as they grumbled about making yet another island strike.32

“What the hell?” asked one. “Is the Big E the only ship that is going to fight this war?”

Others bitched that Saratoga was back in the States to repair her torpedo damage while Lexington and Yorktown were nowhere to be seen. Murray appreciated the healthy banter. If a sailor is not griping, he is not happy, he thought.

The Marcus mission was jeopardized on March 2, when Enterprise broke radio silence to help guide the morning’s search planes back to the ship through an ugly rainstorm. The inner-air patrol SBDs made two different submarine sightings during the day and attacked both times. The target was actually the U.S. submarine Gudgeon, outbound from Midway Island. Gudgeon was able to crash-dive and avoid the “friendly fire” incident, reaching eighty feet before one of the SBD’s five hundred-pound bombs exploded above her starboard quarter. This mistake marked the second attack on a U.S. sub by Enterprise bombers in only ten weeks.33

Bombing Six (VB-6) Tactical Organization

Marcus Island Raid: March 4, 1942

FIRST DIVISION

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-B-1

Lt. Cdr. William Right Hollingsworth

ACRM James Francis Murray

6-B-16

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

AMM2c Benjamin W. Boyd

6-B-14

Ens. Clifford Raymond Walters

AMM2c Wilbur Thomas Thompson

6-B-9

Ens. Arthur Leo Rausch

RM3c Gail Wayne Halterman

SECOND DIVISION

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-B-10

Lt. Richard Halsey Best

ARM1c Harry William Nelson Jr.

6-B-15

Lt. (jg) Edward Lee Anderson

RM3c Jay William Jenkins

6-B-12

Ens. Wilbur Edison Roberts

AMM1c James H. Shea, Jr.

6-B-8

Lt. (jg) John James Van Buren

RM3c Achilles Antonios Georgiou

6-B-17

Ens. Keith Haven Holcomb

AMM2c Lloyd E. Welch

6-B-18

Ens. Thomas Wesley Ramsay

AMM3c Sherman Lee Duncan

THIRD DIVISION

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-B-4

Lt. John Devereaux Blitch

AMM2c William Burr Steinman

6-B-5

Ens. Norman Francis Vandivier

ARM2c Stuart James Mason Jr.

6-B-6

Ens. Tony Frederic Schneider

RM3c Glenn Lester Holden

6-B-13

Lt. Joe Robert Penland

ARM2c Harold French Heard

6-S-18

Ens. Delbert Wayne Halsey

ARM2c Parham Screeton Johnson

The bad weather also took its toll with another Enterprise SBD loss. Lieutenant Charlie Ware of VS-6 ran out of fuel during his final approach in the rain and made a forced landing of his 6-S-16 just astern of the carrier. Ware’s first encounter with the ocean had been two days before Christmas, when his SBD crashed during a takeoff from Yorktown. This time he had enough control to make a good water landing. Ware’s gunner, ARM1c Bill Stambaugh, was slightly injured in their ditching.

Scouting Six (VS-6) Tactical Organization

Marcus Island Raid: March 4, 1942

FIRST DIVISION

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-S-1

Lt. Wilmer Earl Gallaher

ARM1c Thomas Edward Merritt

6-S-7

Lt. (jg) Hart Dale Hilton*

ARM2c Jack Leaming*

6-S-2

Ens. William Edward Hall

AMM1c Bruno Peter Gaido

6-S-4

Lt. Clarence Earle Dickinson Jr.

ARM1c Joseph Ferdinand DeLuca

6-S-6

Ens. Alden Wilbur Hanson

AMM2c Floyd Delbert Adkins

SECOND DIVISION

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-S-10

Lt. Reginald Rutherford

RM3c Earl Edward Howell

6-S-11

Lt. (jg) Norman Jack Kleiss

RM3c John Warren Snowden

6-S-12

Ens. Robert Keith Campbell

AMM2c Milton Wayne Clark

6-S-13

Lt. Frank Anthony Patriarca

ARM1c Ferdinand Joseph Cupples

6-S-14

Lt. (jg) Edward Thorpe Deacon

RM3c Louis Dale Hansen

6-S-3

Ens. Milford Austin Merrill

AOM2c Thurman Randolph Swindell

PHOTOGRAPHIC PLANES

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

6-S-9

Ens. Cleo John Dobson

RM3c Roy L. Hoss

6-S-8

Lt. (jg) Benjamin Henry Troemel

RM2c William Hart Bergin

6-S-15

Ens. Reid Wentworth Stone

AM3c Erwin G. Bailey

CEAG

PLANE

PILOT

REAR SEAT GUNNER

CEAG

Cdr. Howard Leyland Young

CRM John Murray O’Brien

*Ditched near Marcus; became POWs.

6-S-5 Lt. (jg) West/ RM3c Stitzelberger aborted with engine trouble.

Both men were picked up by the cruiser Northampton, but they would not be returned in time for the Marcus strikes. Lucky Charlie! Kleiss wrote in his journal. Or is he? He’ll miss out on all the fun.34

During the evening of March 3, Enterprise and two escort ships picked up speed for a run in toward Marcus Island. In the chief petty officers’ quarters, Jim Murray felt the vibrations of the ship as the pace increased. We are making our final run-in and another reveille is in the offing, he thought.35

“If anything should ever happen to me, my biggest regret would be not getting to see you again,” Dusty Kleiss wrote to his girlfriend Jean that night. “Always my last thoughts and words will be to you.”36

Jack Leaming would never forget Ash Wednesday, March 4, 1942. He was sleeping soundly when reveille sounded for the airmen at 0330. He dressed quickly and completed his breakfast. While the pilots were being briefed, Leaming checked his equipment, chatted, and kidded with other gunners about the day’s mission as they sipped their coffee.37

“Pilots, man your planes!” The call came at 0435 with the clanging of the ship’s general alarm.

The moon was still shining as the aviators poured out of the island structure at a full run. Leaming ran excitedly to 6-S-7, clutching his pilot’s chart board as he climbed into the rear cockpit. He passed the board to Dale Hilton, fastened his earphones to the ICS, and awaited the order, “Start engines!”38

Hilton’s plane captain offered to man the inertia starter that fired the engine. Leaming asked him to hold the key to his locker until he returned, not wanting any extra clutter in his flight suit. “Don’t get any ideas about that money and my wristwatch in my locker!” Leaming hollered.39

Leonard Check remained grounded and thus would miss the Marcus Island strike. His regular gunner, Stuart Mason, however, had been cleared for flight duty with VB-6 junior pilot Norm Vandivier. Dusty Kleiss was happy with the “God-sent moonlight” that offered the Enterprise strikers the opportunity to launch with less drama than they had experienced during the previous week’s Wake strike.40

Brigham Young was first off the deck at 0446 in his command SBD. He was followed by Earl Gallaher’s Scouting Six—down to just fourteen operational planes. Holly Hollingsworth’s VB-6 added another seventeen dive-bombers, followed by six of Wade McClusky’s Wildcat fighters. By 0525, Commander Young’s thirty-eight-plane flight departed for Marcus Island, located 128 miles distant. The full moon had eased the formation process, but a heavy overcast prevailed.

Dick Dickinson struggled to see his wingmen in the fog. His division climbed up through the two-mile layer of cloud cover, but the Enterprise units were already split up. Scouting Six became separated from Bombing Six, and they lost track of the few fighters going in with them. Dickinson’s squadron could not even maintain formation within its own divisions.41

Jim Murray’s nerves were on edge. Bombing Six’s rendezvous and departure were equally stressful. The position lights on our rudder don’t mean a thing in these clouds, Murray thought. I’m lucky to see our own tail in this fog, let alone an approaching SBD or F4F!42

Young’s dive-bombers climbed to sixteen thousand feet but struggled to stay on course to Marcus. The overcast grew increasingly denser as they approached the island. Lieutenant John Baumeister, the Enterprise radar officer, tracked the strike planes on his radar scope and communicated to them via the carrier’s superfrequency YE homing transmitter. Young’s gunner, CRM John O’Brien, intercepted the code dispatch and relayed to the CEAG that their planes were five miles north of the correct course. The new technology of radar guided the Enterprise Air Group to its objective, and Marcus was spotted at 0630 through a break in the clouds.43

Holly Hollingsworth had informed his Bombing Six that their primary target was aircraft on the field. Secondary objectives were any installations sighted, with particular regard for radio stations, fuel tanks, hangars, and AA batteries. Forty minutes remained before full sunrise, but Marcus Island’s three shining runways could be seen paralleling the coastlines. Commander Young knew that surprise would be lost if his dozens of planes circled about the island waiting for full sun.44

Young pushed over. He was followed by the VS-6 photo plane division of Dobson, Troemel, and Stone. Dobson planted his five-hundred-pounder dead center in the runway and then flattened a hangar with his wing bombs. The darkness and heavy cloud cover made accurate bombing difficult, although VB-6 planes dropped parachute flares to help illuminate the target. Hollingsworth’s first planes pushed over at 0640 and released their bomb loads in ripple effect from three thousand to two thousand feet. Antiaircraft fire was intense and uncomfortably close. Hollingsworth felt that the smaller-caliber fire was much more accurate than any previously encountered. Tracers were close aboard even as planes retired as far as five miles away. The first four to dive succeeded in waking up the Japanese gunners, thought Jim Murray.45

The Marcus airfield appeared to be under construction. Heavy AA fire made it difficult, if not impossible, for pilots to ascertain the results of their bombing runs. Several buildings and an oil storage tank were set aflame, and a string of explosions was seen in one area. Jack Blitch, leading VB-6’s third division, took out a radio transmitter building located between a pair of radio towers. Two fires on Marcus burned brightly enough that they could be seen thirty miles away as the first SBDs retired.

Reggie Rutherford’s second division of scouts was next to attack. They approached at 0650 from an altitude of seventeen thousand feet. Dusty Kleiss was rocked by eight AA bursts all around his Dauntless. Best shooting I’ve seen yet, he wrote in his journal. I skimmed through the cloud fringe of the hole in the clouds at five thousand feet and laid my eggs in the center of a group of wooden barracks beside the runway. His two hundred-pound incendiaries sparked impressive fires, but his five-hundred-pound bomb hung up in the rack. Kleiss was forced to shake it off over the ocean during his return.46

Bud Merrill, last to dive of his division, saw tracers coming up at his plane and cracked open his canopy to get a better view of his target. The wind force suddenly pulled the goggles from his head and tugged in the wind with such ferocity, Merrill feared they might pull him from his cockpit. The hold-down straps broke at last as he flattened out from his dive.47

Earl Gallaher’s first division of VS-6 was the last to attack at about 0700. His five planes had become lost in the heavy cloud cover and spent considerable time circling about to find their target. On his wing, Gallaher had Dale Hilton and one of his loaner pilots, Bill Hall, as they ducked down underneath some clouds and finally gained sight of the island. Bringing up the rear of the division was Dick Dickinson with another VB-3 loaner pilot, Ensign Al “Oley” Hanson, on his wing. Marcus Island’s defenders had the best AA installations and gun control Dickinson had encountered. “I was convinced each was shooting straight at me,” he said.48

Dickinson dived past two hundred feet through the overcast and smoke to release his bomb on a wooden structure near the hangar area. As he pulled out, he and gunner Joe DeLuca felt that every single Japanese gunner was aiming their red tracer bullets at them. Somehow, Dickinson’s plane was unscathed. His roommate, Dale Hilton, in 6-S-7 ahead of him, was less fortunate.49

Jack Leaming had been watching the planes dive ahead of him and noticed an AA battery that began firing on his plane. Lieutenant Hilton made his dive at approximately a forty-five-degree angle, coming over and parallel to the runway on the island. Leaming watched the altimeter spin down and yelled, “Mark!” into his mike as they reached fifteen hundred feet. Their three bombs were released and Hilton streaked across the narrow edge of the island to escape under heavy AA fire. Leaming felt like they were aiming at his crotch, and he was soaked with sweat.50

Hilton jinked his SBD about to avoid the streams of machine-gun fire stitching the sky ahead of him. He figured that maintaining a straight course only made his plane a steadier target for the heavier-caliber batteries below. Several close bursts tossed his Dauntless about like a toy. And then it happened. Hilton’s plane was slammed hard by a large-caliber round and Jack Leaming heard a loud r-r-r-r-rrup sound that rose above the flight noise. It sounds like a steel plate being dragged over concrete, he thought. Jesus Christ! There goes our landing gear.51

At the same instant, a hot clip from Leaming’s spent .30-caliber machine gun dropped into his boot. He thought for a second he had been hit. He glanced at his plane’s starboard side and was alarmed. A boiling mass of red and blue flames crackled through a four-inch hole in the upper structure of the wing. The sixty-five gallons of aviation fuel in Hilton’s starboard tank were quickly consumed as fire ate up his wing.

What the hell is all this for? thought Leaming. It must be for something. It has to be! All this sacrifice, this misery, this terror. I have listened to much chatter and have been in some very tight spots. From experience, I feel that the last word or expletive a flier utters before disintegrating with his plane is SHIT!52

The airspeed of Hilton and Leaming’s SBD only increased the rate at which the fire spread up their wing. Pieces of aluminum flew off into the slipstream as Leaming watched, joining the plume of fire and smoke that trailed his plane.

“Is the radio okay?” Hilton asked over the ICS.

“Yes, sir, all set,” Leaming replied.

At 0705, Hilton opened up on his radio and announced to Enterprise that his plane was afire. “I am going to land east of the island, but I am all right,” he reported.

Hilton’s dilemma was witnessed by others. Dick Best was retiring to the southeast, watching flaming balls flying up at him like oranges from a distant shore battery. Best suddenly saw a flash in the sky and realized that an Enterprise plane had been hit. Dick Dickinson caught a glimpse of Hilton’s Dauntless as he passed by underneath. His roommate’s plane seemed to be completely ablaze, except for its left wing. The engine was wrapped in fire, and flames streamed back twenty feet from the right wing. There’s not even a chance that Dale can hold her together long enough to make a water landing, Dickinson thought.53

But somehow, Hilton managed to win the fight. He kept his blazing SBD aloft until about ten miles east of Marcus Island. Jack Leaming could see the ocean coming up fast as they prepared to ditch. Their 6-S-7 hit the water, bounced, then hit again, skidded over the surface, and came to a sudden stop. The bomber’s nose went under and its tail rose into the air. Leaming scrambled out onto the port wing and removed their rubber boat.

Hilton was momentarily stunned. His face had hit the gunsight, opening a deep gash under his left eye and other lacerations on his forehead. The little finger on his left hand was bent outward. Leaming followed his pilot’s directions and helped pull the broken finger back into place. He then climbed into the rubber raft. Hilton, still dazed and his face bleeding profusely, floundered around in the ocean, unable to climb on board or even inflate his Mae West. Leaming finally convinced him to pull his flotation handle to lift his face out of the water before his blood loss attracted sharks.54

Several SBDs passed overhead as Hilton finally flopped into their rubber boat. Dick Best saw the VS-6 aviators waving to him and giving the thumbs-up signal before he departed. Jim Murray in 6-B-1 also spotted Hilton’s crew and realized there was nothing he could do to help other than advise his ship of their location. Murray was troubled when he learned the downed pilot’s identity; he and Hilton had both served prewar in Yorktown’s Torpedo Squadron Five.55

The American planes overhead soon departed, leaving Hilton and Leaming drifting near Marcus Island. They had only their .45 pistols, two canteens of water, and some scant rations. Leaming was in favor of unloading both clips on the first Japanese that approached them, but his pilot convinced him that they were better off being taken prisoner than dying in their raft. “We are not going to win the war today, but we will certainly win it ultimately,” Hilton said.56

Both men reluctantly tossed their guns in the ocean. Leaming rowed toward the island burning in the distance while Hilton nursed his swollen face. As they neared shore, the swirl of angry breakers convinced Hilton that they should row toward the calmer southern side of the island to avoid the nasty coral reefs. A short time later, a thirty-foot boat with a small motor came chugging out toward them.57

The boat of Japanese soldiers pulled up alongside their raft. The Scouting Six aviators knew that fighting was useless. The soldiers were shouting angrily in their native language and were brandishing rifles affixed with bayonets. Staring at death is a sensation that is extremely difficult to accept, because you are looking into eyes that seem to reflect the same feeling you are experiencing, Leaming thought. The Americans were blindfolded and guarded at either ends of the little boat as it chugged back to the island. There, they were herded into a waiting truck and driven down a bumpy, shell-covered road. Leaming and Hilton were interrogated by a squad of armed soldiers bearing fixed bayonets.58

The senior commander of the island began asking questions, which were relayed by an interpreter in his best broken English. “If you do not answer my questions truthfully, I will kill you,” he said. Leaming was quizzed on what ship he had flown from. Because of the remote location of Marcus Island, the Japanese certainly knew that they were carrier aviators, so Leaming stated that they were from the carrier Yorktown. He thought, I am not going to tell these sons of bitches the truth. The hell with them!59

The Scouting Six fliers were thereafter trucked to a building where they were placed in an eight-foot-square prisoner cell. Hilton and Leaming were given white jumpsuits, typical Japanese sailor work clothing, to wear. As they sat in their cement-floored cell, they realized their short time at war was over. Life had now reverted to maintaining a will to survive as prisoners of war. “Our predominant thoughts centered on what the future held for us,” Leaming said.60

• • •

The Marcus Island strike had been completed twenty minutes before it was even scheduled to begin. Because of the lack of light, no photos were obtained by the three VS-6 photo planes. Bombing Six escaped without damage to any of its aircraft. Scouting Six was stung again by the loss of the Hilton/Leaming crew. Brigham Young’s remaining planes withdrew to the southeast from Marcus and returned to Enterprise at 0845.

The damage caused at Marcus was hard to assess, aside from a gasoline storage tank, the radio transmitter, and many new holes in the coral runway. “It is regretted that more valuable targets could not be found,” Commander Young wrote. The raid had, however, served notice to Japan of how close the American carrier groups were approaching to their home islands. “We gave it a fairly good working over for the number of planes we had,” VB-6’s Jim McCauley said of the Marcus strike.61

During retirement on March 5, the task force was shrouded with weather so foul that all planes were grounded. Cleo Dobson passed the time playing bridge with a quartet in Perry Teaff’s sick bay room. Despite the loss of his right eye, Teaff remained upbeat, anxious to return home to his wife, Maggie. “He is looking forward to a lifetime with his wife and family,” Dobson wrote, “which is a lot more than I can look forward to.”62

The Dauntless crews flew almost constant missions during the following days as the task force headed for Hawaii. Fatigue began to catch up. Lieutenant Dickinson was so exhausted from long scouting flights by March 6 that he nearly cracked up his SBD upon landing. The flight surgeon, Lieutenant J. M. Jordan, advised Earl Gallaher to ground him temporarily from flying. For once, Dickinson decided not to argue.63

The Enterprise air group had become the most bloodied of the American carrier task groups, with raids on the Marshalls, Wake, and Marcus now under their belts. Lexington’s Task Force 11 had attempted a raid on Rabaul in late February, but she had been snooped out by Japanese aircraft en route. Two waves of Japanese Mitsubishi “Betty” bombers had attacked Lexington, stymied only by the valiant efforts of her fighter and SBD airmen. Lieutenant (j.g.) Edward “Butch” O’Hare of Fighting Three became an ace in a day by downing five Bettys, earning the Congressional Medal of Honor in the process.

Enterprise entered Pearl Harbor on March 10, with her air group landing on Oahu ahead of her. The pilots and gunners of VS-6 and VB-6 secured their planes and headed for the Royal Hawaiian Hotel to enjoy a well-deserved week’s rest. There, they found that Admiral Halsey had furnished five bottles of good whiskey, a luxury almost impossible to obtain on Oahu by this time of the war.64

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