The First Hellcat Ace

On August 23, 1943, we sailed from Pearl Harbor in the company of the Yorktown and escorting surface warships. Our destination was Marcus Island, only about 700 miles southeast of Japan and home to a Japanese naval base and airfield. While not terribly significant in a strategic sense, it was an important base and would provide us a good opportunity to test our tactics, while at the same time giving the Japanese a wake-up call: the U.S. carrier fleet was back in action!

There were no flight operations along the way. Again, as we had on the way to North Africa and back, we played cards, watched movies, and had training sessions in our ready room. Airplane recognition drills were a regular item on our training menu. I think we spent so much time on airplane recognition because it was an easy lesson for the instructor to prepare, as well as being so crucial to survival, and ultimately to our success as fighter pilots. Life-and-death decisions had to be made in an instant, and time wasted trying to identify aircraft as friend or foe could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Nevertheless, there was no doubt that the drills got boring. The instructor flashed pictures or silhouettes of airplanes over and over in the front of our ready room. Whether I wanted to or not, I got to the point where I could identify any airplane, American or Japanese, in mere thousandths of a second.

I also got to the point where I could identify every movie star from just about any B movie made up to that time. Hollywood made a big deal about how it was entertaining the troops overseas with free movies. What wasn’t well advertised was that the bulk of these movies were not the crown jewels of motion picture entertainment. I watched bad movies night after night—in the vain hope, I suppose, that they might get better. Most of the time they did not.

To make things worse, some of the films were made to be shown on a wide screen. When projected on the small screen that we had, all of the people were about three inches wide! We called these movies “skinnies” and watched them anyway. To this day, Louise has a difficult time getting me into a movie theater.

Another skill we honed during the time we spent splashing from one part of the Pacific to another was skeet shooting. Shooting, especially deflection shooting, was encouraged to sharpen our gunnery skills. One pellet loaded into each one of our shells had a special coating that made it glow like a tracer so that we could see where we were hitting or missing. We set up a skeet thrower on the end of the deck and popped away for hours at a time. This is something I enjoyed quite a bit, and I’m sure that it helped to sharpen my shooting eye.

We received plenty of target briefings during our week-long trip to Marcus Island. The air intelligence officer had solid information about what we could expect to encounter. He also had fairly recent photos of the island and we knew pretty much where the antiaircraft batteries were located. The one thing he could not tell us was how many and what types of airplanes were flying out of the airfield there. It was a small airfield, though, and we didn’t believe there would be much aerial opposition.

Since I had been in combat before, the tenseness and uncertainties that I had experienced aboard the Ranger were less pronounced now. Flying the F6F helped somewhat as well; it was superior to the F4F in every way. On the eve of combat operations, it was particularly reassuring to know that the F6F had more armor plate behind, beneath, and in front of the cockpit than the F4F had.

McWhorter and the other squadron pilots kept their shooting skills sharp by shooting skeet from the deck of the Essex. (McWhorter Family)

By the very early morning of September 1, 1943, our small task force had made its way to a position 150 miles north of Marcus Island. The plan was a predawn launch—one strike group from each carrier. Air Group 5, aboard the Yorktown, was to lead the way since its commander, Commander Jimmy Flatley, was senior to our air group commander, Jack Raby.

Flight quarters was scheduled for 0330, so Bill Bonneau, Gene Valencia, and I didn’t have to sweat out a long night of precombat jitters. We got up at 0200 and showered, then took turns shaving in the sink in our room. After climbing into my flight suit, I went down to the wardroom for breakfast. Unlike on our first day of combat off the coast of North Africa aboard the Ranger, there was no effort by the galley crew of the Essex to prepare a special meal.

After eating I made my way up to the squadron ready room, just below the flight deck on the port side of the ship. The room had a dark, morbid glow to it, as only the red overhead lights were on. These lights helped our eyes become night-adapted. I don’t know if it was because of the lights or the impending combat, but everyone seemed to be speaking in hushed voices.

Phil Torrey gave us our preflight briefing and passed out our airplane assignments. I checked my chart board to make sure that I had all the required information—headings, times, frequencies, target information, expected task force positions, and the location of the lifeguard submarine. At about 0330 the call came for the pilots to man their planes.

I strapped on my shoulder holster; we now carried Smith & Wesson .38 Specials, Victory models, rather than the big Colt .45 pistols. The .38 was smaller, easier to carry, and easier to shoot. Next, I put on my Mae West life preserver and my helmet, then grabbed my chart board and filed out the small corridor at the rear of the ready room with the rest of the pilots.

I stepped out onto the dark catwalk and into the humid wind as the ship sliced through the dark, gentle Pacific. The night was pitch-black; I almost had to feel my way up onto the flight deck and through the rest of the airplanes until I found mine.

At this point in the war, the Navy was beyond paranoid about losing one of its valuable aircraft carriers to Japanese submarines. Consequently, the light discipline at night was several orders of magnitude beyond unwaveringly rigid. There were no flashlights, floodlights, or running lights for either the ships or airplanes. There was absolutely nothing to give away our position.

In the dark, the plane captain and I half-felt our way around the airplane. We checked to see that the flight surfaces were undamaged and working properly, and that there were no oil, hydraulic, or gasoline leaks that would make the airplane unsafe for flight.

The cockpit was a black hole as well. This was when those blindfold cockpit checks we suffered through during training finally paid off. After the plane captain helped me strap in, I arranged myself and waited. Had I not been waiting to go into combat, I would have enjoyed my seat under the dark tropical sky. The temperate breeze that tumbled into the cockpit and brushed across my face was almost soothing.

Shortly after 0400 we got the signal to start our engines. Flashes of light pierced the pitch black of the flight deck as flames belched from wakening engines. Propellers swung slowly at first, then in a sudden roar of smoke and fire transformed themselves into translucent, whirling, deadly disks.

In minutes the deck was aglow from the exhaust flames of dozens of big radial engines. The ban on lights seemed silly now. Once my engine was started, I checked the dimly lit instrument gauges to ensure that everything was functioning properly. I followed the signals of the taxi directors, who were positioning aircraft with barely visible light wands.

Phil Torrey was taxied up to the takeoff spot and we were led into a line behind him. He launched at 0430 and the rest of us moved into position to follow in 30-second intervals. Once I was taxied up to the takeoff spot the flight deck officer whirled a flashlight in his right hand, signaling me to run my engine up to full power. I stood on the brakes, double-checked that the fuel mixture control was on auto rich and that the propeller pitch lever was full forward, then moved the throttle forward slowly. As I did so, I checked the engine instruments to ensure that the oil temperature and pressure were steady and that I was getting 2,700 rpm and 54 inches of manifold pressure.

I no longer had any trouble seeing the flight deck officer or anything else on the flight deck. The exhaust of my big R2800 produced a flame about two feet long from the aft starboard side of the engine cowling; it really lit the place up.

Everything looked good. On a normal night launch I would have signaled that I was ready for takeoff by flashing my running lights, but that was forbidden for this launch. So, I gave the flight deck officer a hand salute and he dropped his arm, pointing down the deck. I released the brakes and went speeding into the night.

Once airborne, I raised the landing gear handle, cranked the canopy closed, brought the flaps up, and busied myself looking for the rest of my flight. I strained my eyes against the dark and looked above me to the left, or port, side of the ship. At the same time, I continued to scan the needle and ball mounted on my instrument panel. These two instruments told me whether I was turning or skidding, and in so doing helped me to avoid vertigo and to stay right side up. If I were not careful, with the night so dark, I wouldn’t be the first naval aviator to fly blithely into the water.

It was so pitch black that I could only just make out small, blue-tinged exhaust flames from other aircraft. Finally, I spotted a darker shape with an exhaust flame that appeared to be that of a Hellcat in a left turn. I couldn’t be sure, though, as there were dive bombers and torpedo bombers airborne, and one exhaust flame looked much like another.

I added power to join. As I adjusted my angle of bank, I scanned my instruments and double-checked my airspeed, altitude, and attitude. Again, if I wasn’t careful, I could get disoriented and spin into the ocean. It had happened to others. I closed the distance, and a dark shape soon loomed in contrast to the exhaust flame. I reduced power, readjusted my angle of bank, and slid underneath it and into position on its right wing. Luck was with me; I had joined on another Hellcat. But it was so dark that I couldn’t see the identification numbers on its side. I had no idea who I had joined with, but it didn’t matter. For the time being I was staying put. I knew that all around me others were joining, breaking formation, and rejoining until they found a like-type wingman. It was truly a miracle that we didn’t lose any aircraft to midair collisions.

When the strike group was finally more or less assembled, someone turned us toward Marcus Island, and we were on our way. Moments later the formation nearly came apart when some idiot in the rear accidentally came down on his trigger and sent a huge arc of .50 caliber bullets over the top of the entire formation. At night the tracers looked enormous—like great fiery pumpkins streaming overhead. Disaster was only narrowly averted as airplanes scattered to get out of the way. Again, luck was with us, as no airplanes were hit, and there were no collisions. That episode upset a lot of people.

As it got light enough for us to make out the numbers painted on our airplanes, we shuffled formations again until everyone was settled into the correct position. I finally found my division lead, Mike Hadden, and eased into position as number-three, the section leader. A few minutes later Jack Kitchen joined us in the number-two position. Finally, our formation was rounded out when Bud Gehoe pulled into position on my wing as number four. Our four-ship division was attached to Phil Torrey’s division.

For the rest of the flight we were above the bombers in their box formation—SBDs in the lead, TBFs in trail, and F6Fs about 1,000 feet overhead and offset some 500 feet on either side. We kept our heads on a swivel through it all, watching for enemy fighters.

As we approached the tiny island, which was basically taken up by the naval base and airfield, we could see antiaircraft fire reaching up at the airplanes from the Yorktown strike group. Many of the targets were already smoking or on fire and there was still no evidence of Japanese fighters. From about 12,000 feet we watched our dive bombers start their dives.

Once the bombers were on their way it was our turn to push over. I followed Hadden’s lead as he pushed the nose of his fighter down toward the island. I looked over my shoulder to check that Gehoe was still with me.

We built up airspeed quickly to more than 400 miles an hour. As planned, we passed the bombers in their dives and picked out targets to strafe ahead of them. The idea was that the strafing fighters would keep the heads of the antiaircraft gunners down while the vulnerable bombers were in the delivery phase of their dives.

I leveled off at about fifty feet and aligned my gunsight on a hangar. Fifty feet was probably too low. They could have thrown rocks up and hit me. But being so low and fast, I flashed by the antiaircraft gunners so quickly that they had little time to react. As the hangar came in range, I let loose with all six .50 caliber machineguns and watched my tracers fly right through the open doors.

As I climbed back up to altitude for another strafing run, I could see three or four Japanese airplanes burning on the airfield, but no enemy fighters in the air. Most of the airfield and naval base was on fire. Just as in North Africa, our fighters were flashing back and forth across the airfield, shooting at anything that looked worthwhile, trying to dodge antiaircraft bursts and the streams of tracers that crisscrossed low overhead. After two or three more strafing runs, we rendezvoused and set a course back for the Essex.

In a way the strike seemed almost anticlimactic. After all our training and preparations—from Oceana to Hawaii and all points between—and the week it took to transit to Marcus Island, the most frightening part of the flight was the predawn rendezvous. We hadn’t even seen any enemy fighters!

Perhaps the mission was less eventful for me than it had been for others. Mike Hadden’s airplane was hit in the engine by antiaircraft fire. The Pratt & Whitney and Grumman combination saved another life when Mike was able to make it back to the task force and ditch alongside a destroyer. Mike thought his adventure for the day was over when he climbed clear of his sinking airplane; but while bobbing on the surface in his Mae West he was spooked when he spotted several brown objects in the water near him, and he swam away as fast as he could. We were briefed that the waters around Marcus Island were infested with man-eating sharks, and Mike had no desire to be eaten. He was finally picked up by the destroyer and was told by the skipper that he was the first person that he had ever seen swim away from life jackets! Mike had thought that there were three or four big sharks splashing next to him, ready to finish what the Japanese had started. Mike’s airplane was the Essex’s only loss.