As THE ATTACKERS LEFT THE AREA, Japanese seamen were busy fighting fires on several ships—to no avail on the Hiyo and the pair of oilers, but with commendable speed and success on the other vessels. Ozawa, no quitter, was still planning the destruction of the U.S. fleet. At 1900 he ordered the heavy cruisers Haguro and Myoko and most of DesRon 10 to join Kurita’s C Force. After these ships joined, C Force was to head east, find the Americans and fight a night engagement with them. Ozawa took his remaining ships toward Okinawa. Though several of the vessels had been hit, their engineering spaces had suffered almost no damage and they were able to make a comfortable 20 knots.
In Tokyo, Admiral Toyoda and his staff had been following the last two days of fighting with increasing dismay. After discussing the situation with his staff, Toyoda ordered Ozawa to retire from the area. Ozawa received this dispatch at 2046. Since the carriers and screens of A and B Forces were already retiring, they continued northwest. However, Ozawa allowed Kurita to proceed east for over an hour before ordering him to turn back. Kurita had reached the vicinity of 16°05’N, 134°40’E when he received the recall at 2205 and turned about to rejoin the Mobile Fleet.
Darkness was complete when the last U.S. attacker began his plodding journey home. Not many would be racing this night. High-speed flight drank up too much gas. 20 June was the night of a new moon and it was as black as the inside of a coal barge. There was no horizon visible and patches of clouds hung wetly in the path of the planes. Far to the east, in the vicinity of TF 58, thunderstorms were building; the lightning shooting out of them would confuse some of the fliers when they arrived in the area.
The carriers were between 240 and 300 miles away (up to two and one-half hours of flying). Many of the planes had been damaged and some would not make it back. A number of pilots were novices at night flying, let along night carrier landings. They would certainly be getting on-the-job training this night. In small gaggles or sometimes just alone, the planes droned homeward. Some stayed low so as not to use fuel climbing; others climbed to get a little more breathing room. Generally, the fighters were in the best shape because, having carried belly tanks, they were reasonably fat on fuel.
The reaction set in as the planes plodded eastward. The pilots and their crews were suddenly very tired. They had just flown probably the longest mission they would ever fly, fought a wild battle at sundown, and still had a long way to go to reach a friendly flattop. The hypnotic hum of the engines enhanced their tiredness. Eyelids began to droop, finally closing. The flier would wake with a jerk, then begin making a minute inspection of every item in the cockpit, particularly the fuel gauge, in an effort to stay awake. Then the process would start again.
With no horizon to relate to, vertigo was a definite hazard. The aircraft that could had their wingtip and tail lights on so that pilots could stay in position with each other. But even this did not help sometimes. One pilot was trying to stay in level flight using a star as an “Up” reference only to discover the “star” was the tail light of another plane whose pilot was having just as much difficulty in staying level. Other pilots would feel they were banking and level the plane—only to find they were in a real bank, with the ocean just feet away.
Lieutenant Fanning had an especially hard time getting his damaged Hellcat back to the Bataan. Wounded in the left shoulder and over his left eye, Fanning found he had to hold the stick full forward and to the left to maintain level flight. With the fighter’s engine pumping out 30 inches of manifold pressure and 2,050 RPM, he could indicate a little over 140 knots. However, if his speed dropped below 110 knots, his controls became sloppy, and at 98 knots the F6F would start to stall. Not helping his situation was the fact his compass had been shot out. Fortunately, he was able to tag along with a group of planes and made it back to the task force.1
But even in the damaged planes it was the fuel gauges, always the fuel gauges to which the pilot’s eyes kept returning.
Over the radio some of the pilots were talking about their situation. A few were openly frightened, afraid they were lost and pleading for help. Others were quite matter-of-fact about their increasingly unfavorable fuel condition. Several joined forces and prepared to make water landings together.2
And the planes began to go in.
Faint patches of phosphorescence marked the ditchings. Those that could quickly scrambled out of their sinking planes and got into their rafts or bobbed about in their Mae Wests. Others were not so lucky. Wounded or perhaps knocked unconscious when their planes smashed into the swells, they were trapped in their cockpits and dragged down with the other planes.
The rest of the planes continued homeward.
Meanwhile, Admiral Mitscher had been preparing TF 58 for his returning airmen. He ordered his three task groups to open their interval to 15 miles so they would have sufficient room to maneuver during the recovery. He was still intent on pursuing the enemy, so at 1912 he proposed to Spruance that TG 58.7 be released to go after the Japanese. Spruance refused.
“Consider Task Force 58 should be kept tactically concentrated tonight,” Spruance replied, “and make best practical speed toward the enemy so as to keep them in air striking distance.”3
Spruance figured Admiral Lee’s battlewagons had little chance of catching Ozawa’s ships, over 250 miles away, and fuel was now becoming a big consideration for his ships. The destroyers were particularly low on fuel, with some as low as 24 percent of capacity.
By 2015 Mitscher’s planes were beginning to near TF 58. On the ships’ radars the blips could be seen; some of these blips obviously homing in on the task force’s beacons. (A number of the planes first picked up the beacons 70 miles out.) It was just as obvious that others were lost. Some pilots were fooled by the lightning playing to the south and flew in that direction before discovering their mistake. A VF(N)-101 Corsair was launched from the Enterprise to locate and bring back two groups of planes orbiting 80 miles from TG 58.3. The intercept was a success and the planes guided safely to the task force.
At 2030 the planes were arriving overhead. Task Force 58 turned eastward and upped speed to 22 knots. It quickly became apparent that the pilots were having a hard time picking out their home carriers. Each flattop had individually colored, foot-square glow lights to identify themselves, but these were only visible from directly above, and the deck outline lights could only be seen from astern. About this time Admiral Clark ordered all his ships to turn on their lights. A few minutes later, a tense and tired, but willing to try anything to get his boys home, Mitscher ordered TF 58: “Turn on the lights!”4 (“Smoke” Strean, who was trying to land on the Yorktown about this time, later claimed that it was his “bitching” loudly over the radio about his inability to find his carrier in the darkness that led to the lights being turned on.)5
It really doesn’t matter whose idea it was; when the lights came on the effect was dazzling. All ships showed red truck lights and red and green running lights. The carriers’ flight-deck lights were turned up to bright. On each group flagship a searchlight was pointed straight up in the air. Cruisers and destroyers fired star shells to light up the task force.
“It was a weird kaleidoscope of fast-moving lights forming intricate trails in the darkness,” said an Enterprise pilot, “penetrated now and then by tracers shooting through the night as someone landed with his gun switches on, and again by suddenly brilliant exhaust flames as each plane took a cut, or someone’s turtleback light getting lower and lower until blacked out by the waves closing over it. A Mardi Gras setting fantastically out of place here, midway between the Marianas and the Philippines.”6
Another pilot said, “Our formation of ships (could) be described as similar to Atlantic City during convention week.”7
Actually, if anything, TF 58 overdid the display. With so many lights on and star shells going off in bunches, pilots had a hard time picking out carriers and wasted much effort making passes on cruisers and destroyers. Still, in the middle of a supposedly unfriendly ocean—where Japanese submarines might be lurking—Mitscher had taken the gamble in order to get his airmen home. In those few moments he had endeared himself to his fliers forever.
The first planes to land did not have too much trouble. But then, as the bulk of the planes arrived with fliers tired, scared, wounded, or all three, the scene turned to utter chaos. (It would be confusing to try to cover this part of the action chronologically, so in an attempt to keep the narrative clear, each task group will be dealt with separately.)
Clark’s TG 58.1 had been the first to turn on its lights, anticipating Mitscher’s order by several minutes. Being farthest west, Clark’s carriers began landing planes earlier than the other task groups, around 2015. Recovery was no easy task. “First the wind hauled and then backed, varying between 060 degrees true and 200 degrees true, making night landings even more difficult.”8
Ensign H. G. Lewis brought his Helldiver aboard the Hornet on his first approach, although he had made only twenty-three previous carrier landings and none at night. However, deck crashes at 2035, 2124, and 2146 hampered operations considerably. The last plane to land on the Hornet was the F6F of the air group commander, Jackson D. Arnold. Having carried extra drop tanks instead of bombs in order to remain high, take pictures, and direct the attack of his fliers, Arnold had arrived over the Hornet with plenty of fuel. Seeing the situation, he had waited until everyone else had landed before making his approach. Unfortunately, he came in too fast and slashed through the arresting gear and barriers. Arnold escaped from his burning plane with just bumps and bruises. The fire was soon extinguished, but before Arnold had a chance to say anything, his plane and the valuable photographs were pushed over the side.
The Yorktown began landing planes at 2043 with an F6F and ended at 2205 with an SBD. The “Fighting Lady” was pretty lucky; she had only two “closed decks.” The first accident, however, was tragic. Lieutenant M. M. Tomme had just landed and was preparing to get out of his plane, when a visiting aircraft ignored a waveoff and dove at the deck with its hook up. The plane hit hard, bounced over the barrier and smashed into Tomme’s Hellcat, killing him instantly. Three other planes were also destroyed in the pileup. The next “closed deck” was a belly landing that tied up the deck for twenty valuable minutes.
When the Bataan’s Lieutenant (jg) Irwin finally landed on the Yorktown, he had been flying over the task group for forty-five minutes waiting for an open deck. As he taxied past the ship’s island, his engine sputtered to a stop—out of gas! Eventually the Yorktown landed eight fighters and two bombers from her own air group, plus six fighters from the Bataan, four Hornet fighters and torpedo planes, two SBDs from the Enterprise, and one fighter each from the Bunker Hill, Belleau Wood, and Lexington.
The first two planes to land on the Bataan were from the Yorktown and both crashed. “I’ve just landed two and both cracked up,” the light carrier radioed the Yorktown. “Can you get your planes over your ship?”
“We will do what we can,” the Yorktown replied.
“They’re mixed up which carrier is which,” the Bataan shot back. “We can’t take them into the landing circle. Our planes are in someone’s landing circle, I don’t know whose.”9
In the meantime, the Belleau Wood took aboard three of her own fighters, a Lexington Avenger, and one Hellcat apiece from the Hornet and Yorktown. Lieutenant (jg) Christensen, from the ship’s own VF-24, had a very difficult time getting his damaged fighter aboard the flattop. During the fight over the enemy fleet, his plane had been riddled badly. Both rudder cables had been shot away and his hydraulic system knocked out. His right aileron was shredded and several instruments, including his compass, were destroyed. Christensen was shepherded back to the carrier by another pilot. Over the ship, he found the landing circle in shambles. Four times he made approaches using full right rudder tab for directional control; four times he was waved off. On the fifth try he made it. His plane was junked.10 Two more of the Belleau Wood fighters went to other carriers, while the lone TBF that returned (Lieutenant Omark’s) landed on the Lexington with one gallon in its tanks!
With planes running out of fuel every minute, or so it seemed, TG 58.1’s screen was soon reduced to only the cruiser Oakland, all the destroyers being on rescue work. DesDiv 92 was detached at 2351 to search for survivors, returning to the task group late the next day. All the destroyers did yeoman work the next few days pulling fliers out of the water.
One such flier was VF-2’s Ensign W. H. Vaughan, Jr. Flying an F6F without an artificial horizon, he had his hands full trying to keep straight and level on this moonless night. Unable to get aboard a carrier, he decided to ditch. Almost immediately following this decision, the Hellcat’s engine began to detonate and then burst into flames. This reinforced his plans. Just before he touched down, the engine cut out. Vaughan had no trouble getting out of his plane; it remained afloat for over a minute. It was after he got out that he had problems.
In the water he took off his chute, inflated his Mae West, and separated his raft from the chute harness. But then, raft, chute, and sea anchor line became entangled. Though he tried for twenty minutes to free his raft, he finally had to let it go. In his fight with the raft, Vaughan had also lost his waterproof flashlight. Now he had only a whistle, revolver, and dye marker with him. Luck did not desert him, however, for a nearby destroyer heard his whistle and picked him up a short time later.11
Montgomery’s TG 58.2 had its share of troubles, and the ship hardest hit by them was the Bunker Hill. She began landing planes at 2033, with a number of planes from her own air group first aboard. Landings went smoothly for awhile, then at 2056 a Hornet pilot brought in his SB2C too fast. Ignoring a waveoff and red flares, he slammed down and missed the arresting wires. The plane hit the barrier and toppled over on its nose, leaving its prop implanted firmly in the deck. As the deck crew struggled to dislodge the dive bomber, an anxious young ensign from the Cabot tried to land his Avenger on the Bunker Hill. Like the previous pilot, he ignored warnings and forced his aircraft on the deck.
The Avenger hit hard and veered to starboard. The right wing was torn off when it hit a gun mount. The TBM continued down the deck, smashing into the still immobile Helldiver. The Cabot plane flipped over on its back and crashed into the island and flight-deck crash crane. A fire broke out but was quickly put out by the crash crew. Though badly burned, the Avenger pilot survived. Not so fortunate were Commander Wayne O. Smith, the ship’s air officer, and three of the deck crew. Three were killed outright and one more succumbed the next day. One of the bodies was so entangled in the wreckage that it could not be removed before the planes were pushed over the side.
Valuable minutes flashed by before the Bunker Hill could begin landing planes again at 2144. At 2236 a Wasp Hellcat took the barrier, once again fouling the deck. The deck crew worked swiftly and efficiently and jettisoned the plane. The carrier landed her last plane at 2305. In the one and a half hours of landings the Bunker Hill had taken aboard ten of her own fighters, four Wasp fighters, a Cabot Avenger, two Hornet Helldivers, and an Enterprise SBD, plus two of her own night fighters that had been on CAP.
The Bunker Hill’s air group had been mangled badly. Her fighter squadron had come through in fine shape (only Lieutenant (jg) P. J. Wilson was lost, his plane being seen to crash and explode near the task force), but her bomber and torpedo squadrons were hurting. Only three of the eight Avengers launched made it back to some carrier. Only one of the twelve Helldivers sent out made it back safely. Two had been shot down over the Mobile Fleet and nine others had to land in the water after running out of gas.
The Wasp began landing planes at 2046 and continued for two hours. Two “closed decks” hampered operations. One of the crashes involved the Bataan’s Lieutenant Fanning, who made it back after getting shot up over the Japanese ships. Fanning made no less than seven passes on the Wasp before being able to land. He was high as he landed and his plane glided into the barrier. The Hellcat flipped over on its back and the engine tore away from the fuselage. When the deck crew lifted his plane, Fanning released his seat belt and dropped out on his head. Besides the wound in his shoulder, he now had a bump on his head.12
When the last plane landed at 2245, the ship had received five of her own fighters, one fighter each from the Lexington, Bunker Hill, and Bataan, one Yorktown dive bomber, and five Dauntlesses from the Enterprise. As with the Bunker Hill, the Wasp had her Helldiver squadron roughly handled. Five of the big planes had to ditch and five more were missing. Except for the pilot of one of these last planes, none of the latter five crews were recovered.
The Cabot had an interesting night, landing nine planes, only two of which were her own. Two of the planes were big SB2C’S, a type that was not supposed to be able to operate from the narrow-deck light carriers. But the Cabot got them on, though a Yorktown dive bomber that took the barrier had to be pushed over the side to make room for the rest of the carrier’s “guests.”
One of the funnier moments of the night involved a Cabot pilot. When he arrived over TF 58, “Beast” Russell decided he was going to pick out the biggest carrier he could find to land on. The Cabot was just a bit short and narrow for his peace of mind. After searching for a few minutes, he found a carrier that suited him. As he clambered out of his Avenger following the landing, he was greeted with, “That was a beautiful landing, Mr. Russell—just like daytime!”
Lieutenant (jg) Logan J. Phillips, a Bunker Hill pilot, describes the attack on the Mobile Fleet in the Monterey ready room. He landed on the light carrier during the chaos of the night landings. (National Archives)
Lieutenant R. P. Gift relaxes in his ready room after returning from the attack. Note the inscription on the blackboard.
Surprised, Russell shot back, “What ship is this?”
“Why the Cabot, of course! What did you think it was?”
“That’s all I want to know!” Falling to his knees, “Beast” Russell bent over and planted a kiss on his ship’s deck.13
The fourth carrier in TG 58.2. the Monterey, landed only a few aircraft during the madhouse and had a fairly easy time. One plane that was not allowed to land on her belonged to her own torpedo squadron. Ensign R. W. Burnett had tried to land on the Monterey but had been waved off. A second try at a pair of lights turned out to be a pass at a destroyer. With fuel almost exhausted, Burnett set his Avenger down alongside the destroyer. He and his crew scrambled out of their sinking plane, and hardly got their feet wet before a boat from the destroyer Miller picked them up.
The action was no less frantic in TG 58.3. The first plane to land on the Enterprise came aboard at 2055. The Helldiver’s 20-mm guns went off just as it touched down, sending everyone to the deck. Fortunately no one was hurt. Four Avengers were next to land, none being from the Enterprise. Following closely behind was a Lexington SBD. The plane was high at first, then dipped below the carrier’s ramp. Suddenly appearing again at the ramp, the Dauntless got a quick “fast” and a “cut” from the Landing Signal Officer. The plane bounced over the wires, then slid off the barrier into the island. It took the feverishly working crew ten minutes to clear the wreckage and push it over the side. During that time several planes just flying on fumes had to set down in the sea.
With the deck open again, the stampede (for that was what the landings throughout the task force had turned into) resumed. Planes charged up to the end of the deck only to be waved off when another plane cut in too close. Lieutenant Walter R. Harman landed his Hellcat and caught the fifth (the next to last) wire. The hook man could not get Harman’s tailhook released. The plane was stuck as “Tip” Mester’s Dauntless thundered in to land. Lieutenant Walt Chewning, the catapult and arresting gear officer, sized up the situation and jumped up from the catwalk to help release the fighter’s hook.
As Chewning and the hook man worked furiously, Mester was given the “cut” by the LSO. Mester planted his SBD and his hook caught the third wire. As the Dauntless pulled the wire taut, Chewning heard the roar of its engine and glanced back to see the plane surging forward. He rolled off to one side to get out of the way of the impending crash. Mester’s SBD stopped a few feet short of Harman’s fighter. No one was hurt, but plenty of grey hairs were added to the heads of those concerned.14
Cook Cleland landed his VB-16 Dauntless on the Enterprise shortly after the ship’s narrow escape with the “double cut.” As he and his gunner prepared to climb out of their cockpits, the deck crew (nervous and tense over the last few minutes’ encounters) rushed up screaming that they had to push the battered plane overboard. Cleland tried to talk them out of it, but to no avail. His plane was going over the side.
Tired and strung out with nervous tension, he reached for his pistol and waved it at the deck crew. His beloved Dauntless remained on the Enterprise.15
Landings went relatively smoothly (if there was such a word for this night) for the next few minutes, then Lieutenant (jg) Joseph A. Doyle brought his VT-10 plane in. Doyle’s landing was very smooth, then the Avenger’s gear collapsed. It was another ten minutes before the deck crew had the heavy plane over the side.
At 2210 the Enterprise’s LSO, Lieutenant Horace I. Proulx, brought the last plane aboard. Only six of the planes aboard belonged to her air group. One of Air Group 10’s planes that never found a deck to land on was the Avenger of Lieutenant (jg) Cummings. This is what the evening looked like to him:
Our gasoline supply was as much concern to us as anything else we had to consider after we returned to our floating city of lights. Confusion became more apparent as we reduced those last 50 miles, and by the time we arrived there was bedlam. It was too pitiful to be disgusting. Planes made passes at everything floating. I circled too long myself and was forced to go down to find a carrier. I squared away on the starboard side of the Enterprise and seemed to be part of a four-plane landing circle. My center face gauge registered about five gallons less than empty but I felt I could make one pass. I didn’t get the chance to do so. The Enterprise informed us that her deck was foul; that we must hunt some other base. Well I could see the curtains then and struck out for the screening vessels. At about the same time I remember a carrier calling up and announcing she was shooting star shells, and I saw some fresh ones go up. These seemed to be ahead so I decided to stretch out into the wind. The engine still ran beautifully and I went beyond the screening vessels forward of the Enterprise. Just as I reached the most promising lights, I saw it was a large ship—possibly a BB searching for survivors with her searchlight.
Just then the engine on gallant old 52 gave us forewarning that she had started ‘burning the hydraulic fluid’ by coughing violently. The shipboard people below heard that and also heard us fly on. We didn’t go over 2,000 yards up wind however until our old dependable had to stop running on her reputation and quit entirely. We tried to engineer a dead stick landing. Although we were very slow it was still not a perfect landing for we slid off on our right wing and the nose dropped. We hit somewhat nose down. My instinct was to lean forward and curve to the left and when we hit that was my position. I felt an impact equal to a rugged carrier landing.
Our exit from the plane was speedy enough and the water pleasant. My greatest difficulty was getting all the way out of my harness when I found I couldn’t break the chute riser loose from my back pack. Old 52 gave her final salute by sweeping her tail around and nearly taking Lindsay and me with her. It was a sad parting. Terry paddled around like a duck and even after Lindsay and I were squared away in the raft he played around outside.
I signaled to the Baltimore (we learned her name later) with my water-filled flashlight and the hands aboard saw the dull red glow. It hurried our rescue. In about fifteen minutes from the time we hit the water the big dark form of the heavy cruiser was sliding alongside to pick us and the raft up. Rescued! Treated like kings and returned to the Big E two days later by the DD Bradford.”16
Proulx had brought in twenty-three planes that hectic night. Besides the six Enterprise planes, Proulx had handled six Lexington SBDs and one F6F, three Avengers and two Helldivers from the Hornet, one fighter and one torpedo plane from the Yorktown, a Wasp Hellcat and dive bomber, and one Bunker Hill TBF. Proulx almost landed a twenty-fourth visitor.
Toward the end of the evening he picked up another plane in the landing circle. However there was something odd about the behavior of this plane. Instead of following normal landing procedures, this pilot did everything in reverse; with a “high” signal he would fly higher, etc. Disgusted after a third waveoff, Proulx shone a light on the plane and was amazed to see red “meatballs.” Others aboard the flattop were equally surprised to see this apparition. The visitor finally flew off and was not seen again.17
(An apparition it may have been. Though both the Wasp and the San Jacinto also claimed seeing an enemy plane in their landing patterns, there has been no definite proof there actually was one. And yet—stranger things have happened in wartime.)
Things were and had been pretty hectic in TG 58.3 by the time the Japanese plane appeared. The destroyers were particularly busy, as a look at the task group’s radio log shows.
Mitscher got a close look at the chaos around TF 58 when the planes started landing on the Lexington. The first plane to land was a Hornet Avenger. Realizing the difficulty his pilots were having finding their own carriers, at 2052 Mitscher told them to land on any available flattop.
The next plane to land on the Lexington was also a visitor, an F6F. Up to this point things had been relatively quiet for the ship. Then the rat race began. Incoherent gaggles of planes rushed the ship, each pilot hoping to force his way onto the deck. They had to be waved off, their precious fuel becoming more precious by the second.
Another Hellcat was brought aboard, this one from the Enterprise, followed shortly by another fighter. Next, an Avenger came lumbering out of the darkness astern. Flying the big plane was Torpedo 10’s Lieutenant Eason. Eason had already made one pass at the carrier and was almost hit by a unlighted plane, then he was cut out of the pattern by a second plane. On this try he was in the groove and the LSO was about to give him a “cut” when the Avenger’s engine sputtered and died. Now just a flying brick, the plane staggered and fell off on its left wing. The LSO dived into his safety net as the tons of steel, aluminum, and rubber hurtled over him to splash into the water. As the Lexington raced on, Eason and his crew could be seen tumbling out of the sinking plane. After about fifteen minutes in the water, they were picked up by the destroyer Cogswell.
The madness continued. More planes queued up to try and land on the big carrier. Time after time the LSO had to wave them off. Air discipline had almost completely broken down now. Pilots jockeyed for position right up to the ramp, hoping to force other pilots out of the pattern. Waveoffs were sometimes ignored, generally with tragic results. If the pilots did accept a waveoff, they did so in ways they would never have usually done—pulling out straight up the deck or cutting to the right, just missing the carrier’s island.
A fourth Hellcat landed on the Lexington, then a Hornet SB2C was brought aboard. The dive bomber trundled forward to its parking spot. Roaring out of the blackness astern came another Bombing 2 Helldiver, its pilot intent on landing. The plane was coming in too fast. The LSO frantically tried to wave off the onrushing plane, but his signals were ignored and the dive bomber kept coming.
Forward on the Lexington’s flight deck the six planes already landed were parked. Two Hellcats had been spotted to starboard, but the last planes were still parked nose to tail. With the help of Plane Handling Crew No. 6, the SB2C was just moving into its parking slot. Its crew was probably thankful this mission was over.
Then the second Helldiver swept past the LSO. The screech of the ship’s crash siren split the air.
It was 2110.
“Clear the deck!” came a cry.
There was a grinding, ripping crunch as the “rogue plane” slammed into the parked dive bomber. The Lexington blacked out—a warning of a foul deck. Another cry was heard, “Loose bomb!”
The gunner in the parked Helldiver was dead, chopped to pieces by the landing plane’s propeller. The impact drove the parked plane forward into the other three aircraft, destroying them all. The pilot of the struck plane was trapped in his cockpit with a smashed foot. One of the plane handlers had been crushed to death and five others injured. The pilot and gunner of the other dive bomber were unhurt.
With the hiss of fire extinguishers as an accompaniment, the deck crew threw themselves into the task of clearing the wreckage. Only a few flashlights and a sickly green spotlight illuminated the scene. The mobile crane was brought forward and began dipping into the wreckage. Planes still congregated to the rear of the ship, hoping they would be first to land when the lights were turned on again. The minutes ticked by. Finally the crane dropped the last piece of junk over the side.
The lights flashed back on. It was 2120.19
An Avenger was first to land, then the gaggle of aircraft started racing for the ship again. At this time none of the Lexington’s planes had yet landed, but not for lack of trying. When Air Group 16’s planes had returned they had found mass confusion. Many of the pilots made three or four passes at a carrier before landing or ditching. Ensign Edward G. Wendorf came close to disaster as he tried to land.
Wendorf was starting his turn to downwind when he saw the exhaust flames of a plane rushing toward him. He nosed over and the other plane roared by only feet away. A mid-air collision had been avoided, but Wendorf was in serious trouble. He had been low to begin with; now he was too low! The Hellcat’s left wheel and wingtip dug into the water. The plane began “several cartwheels and some unrecognizable gyrations.”20
The F6F came to a sudden stop on its back with its nose six to ten feet under the water. The canopy had slammed shut, but water poured through broken parts of it. Wendorf frantically pushed and pulled at the canopy. Finally it budged and he began to drop out of the plane. He was halfway out when the canopy slid forward again, catching on his chute and raft. Once more Wendorf kicked and pried and the canopy opened. He fell clear, but was held against the fighter by the rapidly building water pressure. His lungs were bursting and red-hot pokers seemed to be searing every part of his body. It was almost half a minute before he was able to kick free. Wendorf floated to the surface where he lay weakly.
After a few minutes he inflated his lifejacket, then spent an agonizing hour before he could get his raft inflated. In his weakened condition it took him four tries to finally climb in his raft. Paroxysms of nausea brought on by the oil and water he had swallowed rolled over him as he lay in the raft. After a time he used his one remaining shoe to bail out the raft. As he finished, he noticed several shapes in the water nearby. Thinking these were more downed pilots, Wendorf called out and reached for them. Suddenly he realized they were sharks! Wendorf “began to beat the water madly with (his) shoe, and having no particular use for one shoe, finally threw it at them.”21 Remembering his pistol, Wendorf drew it and fired several shots at his escorts. The sharks eventually moved off.
During this time several destroyers had passed close by, but Wendorf was unable to get their attention by shouting or firing his pistol. He kept wishing he had kept his back pack with its flares and flashlight, but it had apparently gone down with his chute and harness when he had discarded them. Wendorf settled into a fitful sleep.
He was awake when a light carrier neared his raft. At first he was unable to speak, but he finally croaked out an “Ahoy!” Someone on the carrier heard him and a smoke pot was thrown over to mark his position. Soon the destroyer Clarence K. Bronson sidled up, and at 0415 Wendorf was pulled aboard. As he unbuckled his Mae West aboard the destroyer, he discovered he had been wearing his back pack all night!22
Lieutenant (jg) Arthur P. Whiteway had initially missed TF 58 when he had arrived over the force and had flown off toward the lightning flickering to the southeast. Realizing his mistake, he turned back, flying in and out of clouds. Star shells bursting inside the clouds blinded him and he went into a spin, finally recovering only 200 feet above the water. Eventually, he planted his Hellcat on a light carrier at 2150. The plane that landed ahead of Whiteway had to be jettisoned to make room for his F6F.
Some of Air Group 16’s planes finally made it aboard the Lexington. Like so many others sent out on the strike, the Lexington pilots and crewmen were completely drained by their experiences. Many sat dazed in their cockpits after landing. Even after they had reached the ready rooms, nervous tension kept such a hold on them that some could not sit still for more than a few minutes. A gunner coming into his ready room threw his camera onto a chair. With an anguished cry he vowed he would never fly again. When handed a shot of brandy to calm him down, a pilot refused it, claiming his belly was already too full of war.23
Of the twenty-one planes that landed on the Lexington, only nine were hers. The San Jacinto also had her share of visitors during the night (including the wandering Japanese plane) and wound up landing ten aircraft. One Avenger deadsticked into the barrier and had to be jettisoned. She also had one of the few amusing moments during the recovery. Ensign John F. Caffey, from the Lexington, was among the many being waved off repeatedly. With his SBD almost out of gas, Caffey told his gunner, AOM2C Leo D. Estrada, to prepare for a water landing. Estrada doffed his chute and got his gear ready for a quick exit.
Shortly the Dauntless touched down and stopped. Estrada leaped from his cockpit to find himself face to face with an astonished San Jacinto sailor. Mastering the situation, Estrada told the seaman, “This water landing business isn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.”24
Caffey found that the light carrier’s deck crew was not too knowledgeable about the SBD, which did not have folding wings. He was told to fold his plane’s wings and he tried to explain that SBDs just were not built that way. “God damn it,” the reply shot back. “Fold ’em anyway!”25
About 2020 the San Jacinto reported a Japanese plane, identified as a Val or Judy, in its landing circle. The plane was waved off three times because its tailhook was not down. “It is worthy of note,” the flattop later reported, “that only the studied refusal of the pilot to lower his hook prevented his ship from capturing a wandering Jap ‘Val’ who thrice attempted to land on board.”26
The Princeton had not launched any planes that afternoon, but offered to take aboard as many as she could. The offer was gratefully accepted and she wound up landing three Avengers. The last plane to land was VT-10’s Lieutenant (jg) Lawton. He shut down his engine with twelve gallons of gas remaining. “It was a fairly exciting night,” Lawton said.27 Because more strikes against the enemy were anticipated the next day, Admiral Reeves approved the use of the three planes with Princeton crews if needed for these strikes.
By 2250 it was evident that no more planes would be landed. The destroyers, already busy, now took over with a will. There were lots of fliers in the water and, as Samuel E. Morison colorfully put it, the sea looked like “a meadow full of fireflies”28 from the blinking of their waterproof flashlights. To add to the scene, a chirping sound floated across the water, caused by the whistles blown by the fliers. Destroyers darted here and there picking up soggy aviators. One of those rescued was Torpedo 8’s skipper, Lieutenant Commander Musick. Musick had already ditched several days earlier and had been picked up by the destroyer Hickox. Running out of gas this time and again having to ditch, Musick was picked up by—the Hickox. As he was brought aboard, Musick saw painted on the ship’s stack a caricature of himself. A sailor was already adding a hash mark under it for the second rescue.29
The attack on the Mobile Fleet had not cost the TF 58 many planes, but the long flight back and the night recovery had been disastrous. Six Hellcats, five dive bombers, and six Avengers had probably been lost in combat; seventeen more fighters, forty-two dive bombers, and twenty-three torpedo planes had been lost in deck crashes and ditchings. Of the 226 planes that had reached the Mobile Fleet, 99 had been lost—close to half of the attackers. Personnel losses were fortunately much less. On the 21st fifty-one pilots and fifty crewmen were rescued, while thirty-three more pilots and twenty-six crewmen were pulled from the water the next few days. Thus, only sixteen pilots and thirty-three crewmen had been lost, along with two deck officers and four ship’s enlisted men. These were sad losses, but nothing compared to what could have been, if every effort had not been exerted to rescue the downed airmen.
