Clash of The Carriers

IN JOSHIMA’S DIVISION, Commander Shoichi Suzuki’s Air Group 652 launched all twenty-six operational fighters, including seven Zero bombers. They made good use of height and clouds, claiming seven Avengers “confirmed” as well as two probables and two more probable Hellcats. Eleven A6Ms were shot down and three more ditched, leaving twelve to find sanctuary with dry feet.

The strike from Reeves’s Task Group 58.3 was composed of Lexington, Enterprise, and San Jacinto contingents, plus the Belleau Wood tagalongs from 58.1. The Avengers and Hellcats glided off Jig Ramage’s and Ralph Weymouth’s SBDs, skirting the north end of the largest cloud formation, then turned abruptly port to approach B Force from the east.

But first in line were the “orphans” from the 58.1 formation. When the Yorktown group split up, Lieutenant Charles W. Nelson led Torpedo One’s TBMs and SB2Cs between A Force and B Force. He took his Avengers in a hard port turn, away from his intended target, setting up the attack geometry he wanted. But in descending through the lower cloud deck, he emerged twenty-five hundred feet over B Force. Nelson liked what he saw—three carriers instead of one—and took his five-plane division down for a torpedo attack; the other three “Turkeys” trailed with bombs. Smoke Strean’s Hellcats followed, wanting to keep the group together.

Nelson led his torpedo attack against Ryuho, making a good drop at about a thousand yards. Rather than turn away, exposing his white belly to enemy AA gunners, he pressed ahead, into the guns, and hopping over the target. The Japanese could hardly miss—and didn’t. They riddled the Avenger with automatic weapons, setting it afire. Nelson and his crew died in the crash. The other torpeckers also dropped, but Ryuho dodged all five “fish.”

The rest of VT-1 executed glide-bomb runs against Hiyo or Junyo: In the flak and fear and confusion, identification was often impossible. Strean’s fighter-bombers rolled in on the same target or targets. Results were optimistically pegged at three hits and five near misses, a score disputed by CAG Jim Peters, orbiting overhead.

Japanese gunners had no shortage of targets. Helmets cinched down, straps secured in bows tied beneath the chin, gun captains tried to identify the most likely target and pointed their white canes in the appropriate direction. It was an ineffective system, especially against a coordinated, multiaxis attack. American aircrews reported more volume than accuracy: Japanese gunners shot down only six planes among 199 that attacked Mobile Fleet ships.

When Air Group 16 cleared the huge anvil-shaped cumulus, B Force lay in the distance beneath the tricolor Grummans and Douglases. It would have been a memorable sight under any circumstance: three carriers, a battleship, a cruiser, and eight destroyers trailing twenty-four-knot wakes across the cloud shadows highlighted by the evening’s slanting rays on a sun-dappled sea. But for aircrew who had never glimpsed an enemy fleet unit, the sight was entrancing.

Leading the base element of SBDs at twelve thousand feet was Ralph Weymouth, a Guadalcanal veteran who had flown from big, aged Saratoga in 1942. At twenty-seven he was an old-timer in the literal and figurative sense: Only one other pilot among the thirty in Lexington’s formation was older.

Quickly assessing Joshima’s force, Weymouth selected “the southern Hayataka” as his target. There never was a Japanese carrier by that name—nor likely any other ship, either. No matter. The intended victim was probably Junyo, which was not the most southerly flattop (actually it was Hiyo).

Like so many pilots on the mission, top gun Alex Vraciu was struck by the huge cumulus buildup, which likely topped thirty-five thousand feet. Lexington’s strike skirted the northern edge of the towering cloud formation, which blocked much of the sky from view. Consequently, Joshima’s CAP was able to approach largely unseen, and initiated a well-executed bounce on Air Group 16. Vraciu recalled, “I became aware of the attack when I saw a burning TBF’s crew bailing out. Then, all of a sudden, my wingman and I were surrounded by more Zekes than we could handle.” He thought, “I don’t see how we can get them all.” The Airedales had to fight for their lives.

Vraciu’s team started at a disadvantage, as the number four man had aborted. With three Hellcats against eight Zekes, “We were purely defensive.” The dogfight was hard-fought and short-lived. Vraciu scissored with his wingman, Ensign Homer W. Brockmeyer, trying to meet each slashing attack, but the odds were too great. Again coming abeam of Brockmeyer, Vraciu saw the young Ohioan temporarily straight and level, taking hits from astern. The Indiana ace rolled hard right, drew a bead on the offending Zeke, and fired from about 45 degrees off the nose. The Mitsubishi exploded on the second burst, but Brockmeyer’s Hellcat went down streaming smoke.

Vraciu dived after his wingman, hoping to mark the splash if “Brock” got out. But two Zekes intervened and Vraciu had to pull up to avoid them. Jamming stick and rudder, he cross-controlled, forcing his F6F into a speed-killing snap roll that placed his guns on a third assailant. He fired, saw hits, and glimpsed the Zeke dropping away inverted.

The Avenger that Vraciu had seen was Lieutenant Junior Grade Warren E. McLellan’s. The VT-16 crews had been alerted to fighters ahead, and kept their eyes peeled in that direction. McLellan was raptly watching an attack on a big carrier when “about fifty tracers appeared to pass through my plane and go directly out ahead and slightly upward.” Nearly a dozen Zekes had executed a six-o’clock attack from above and below, taking the Americans by surprise. McLellan’s assailant had dived below the Grumman, hiding beneath the tail to shoot into the vulnerable underside.

In seconds the Avenger called “61 Gimlet” was afire. McLellan, his gunner, and radioman rang up the “for-sale” sign and abandoned ship. They delayed pulling their rip cords in order to clear the combat area, then tugged the D-handles. Yards of silk blossomed overhead, yielding the welcome violence of opening shock.

Descending toward the water, McLellan took a professional interest in the scene below. He observed further attacks on what he thought was a Shokaku-class carrier, then busied himself with his water landing. He lost his inflatable raft when it sank with his waterlogged parachute. Buoyed only by his Mae West, facing a night in the ocean, the twenty-two-year-old flier was a long way from Arkansas.

Meanwhile, Torpedo 16 evened the score. As the squadron pulled off target, AMM1c Jack W. Webb in Lieutenant Norman A. Sterrie’s plane shot down a Zeke that got too close. As the Japanese turned away from his ineffectual run, Webb got a good burst into the belly and saw the hostile nose into the water and explode. The sharpshooting Ohioan got a Distinguished Flying Cross for his gunnery.

Weymouth’s Dauntlesses—lower and slower than the Avengers—got most of the Zekes’ attention. The skipper’s backseater, ARM1c William A. McElhiney, saw unidentified aircraft closing from astern. He pushed his mid canopy section forward, folded the rear section down, stepped on the pedal opening his gun bay, and pulled his twin .30 mount up and back. A quick tug on the charging handles and he was ready to shoot. The lead Zekes reached firing range as Bombing 16 nosed over from 11,500 feet.

Other gunners also took up the challenge. Their twin Brownings began chattering, trying to keep Air Group 652’s fighters at arm’s length while the last miles swept past. But some fliers were still absorbed with the entrancing sight of so many enemy warships. ARM2c Richard L. Van Etten in Ensign Henry M. Moyers’s plane was manhandling a camera in the 160-knot slipstream, trying to steady the viewfinder for a prestrike photo. Abruptly streaks of light flashed past: Japanese tracers. Van Etten deposited the camera in the bilges of his SBD and deployed his guns.

Three SBDs were hit by Japanese gunfire, but no serious damage was done. In turn, VB-16 gunners put enough .30-calibers into three Mitsubishis to deter them from further attack. Weymouth signaled for a shift from vees into right echelon preparatory to diving. Heavy flak now was bursting nearby, jostling the Dauntlesses in their descent, but the transition was smoothly made. Bringing the formation around to the west, with the setting sun behind him, Weymouth had a nearly perfect setup: down-sun, upwind, along the target’s axis.

The Minutemen rolled in at 1904, raining one-thousand- and five hundred-pound bombs down on Hiyo. Ralph Weymouth had put a Japanese carrier in his sight once before: Nearly two years earlier he had near-missed Ryujo at Eastern Solomons. Now he was determined to get a hit. In his brief dive he played the SBD’s controls with the deft touch so beloved of dive-bomber pilots. It was the gift that Douglas design genius Ed Heinemann had bestowed upon aviators of the U.S. Navy: inherent stability coupled with light control responses to keep on target. Helldiver pilots could only envy those who flew the “obsolete” Dauntless.

Weymouth had “Wandering Falcon” squarely in his illuminated sight when he pressed the red button atop his stick at fifteen hundred feet. Then he moved the flap selector lever rearward, pulled in his dive brakes, and hauled back on the stick. Despite the heavy g load, gunner McElhiney looked back in time to see a smoke puff erupt beside the island.

Most of the other Lexington pilots pressed their attacks on Hiyo, but some shifted targets on the way down. A few were deprived of a clear view of the objective, so they went after Junyo, pounding along off Hiyo’s port beam. Others were bounced around by bursting flak, finding it easier to settle on Junyo than the primary target. One was Lieutenant Cook Cleland, an extroverted, fun-loving Ohioan with three Air Medals and the Purple Heart. His Dauntless, faithful old Number Thirty-nine, took hits from 20- and 40mm shells, knocking him off course. Thanks to the SBD’s marvelous ailerons, he quickly rolled back on target and claimed a hit just forward of the stern. Then he tugged back on the stick, praying that his wing with a two-foot hole would hold together.

The bad news: He had just regained level flight when a Zeke initiated a high-side run from five o’clock, then wrapped around in a continuing turn. But gunner William J. Hisler was quick on the draw. He swung his .30s, got a quick bead on the assailant, and put sixty rounds into the Mitsubishi’s undersides. The fighter threw off a smoke trail, dropped one wheel, and managed a ditching alongside a destroyer.

Seconds later a Val rushed in from port, firing its nose guns as it came. Cleland’s wingman, twenty-one-year-old Ensign John F. Caffey, swung into the threat and exchanged gunfire head-on. Two 7.7s against two .50s was no contest. The Aichi veered off and was lost to sight.

Later, Lexington’s Dauntlesses claimed seven half-ton hits on Hiyo and/or Junyo, while the high-speed, shallow-angle Avengers pickled their five-hundred-pounders as high as three thousand feet, claiming three or more hits. In truth, Hiyo sustained one bomb hit and Junyo two from all attackers. Fading light, normal combat confusion, excitement, and youthful optimism combined to produce the treble overestimate.

Whatever the bombing results, there was definitely a running gunfight to the rendezvous. By singles and sections, Bombing and Torpedo 16 shot their way clear of the vengeful Japanese CAP, and there were losses on both sides. Several Zekes slashed vertically at Weymouth and some of his SBDs, barely pulling out above the darkening water. One fighter was especially persistent: It survived the attention of three Dauntless gunners to fire one well-aimed burst before it pitched up, stalled, and dived into the sea. But that burst killed Weymouth’s twenty-two-year-old wingman, Lieutenant Junior Grade James A. Shields. His twenty-three-year-old gunner, ARM2c Leo O. LeMay, was still firing when their SBD smashed into the waves.

Overhead Carrier Division Two, the Big E’s fliers went to work with other squadrons. Jig Dog Ramage coordinated his SBDs with Torpedo Ten’s Avengers to attack the two nearest flattops.

Ramage set up VB-10’s attack on the center group, selecting Junyo, flanked by Hiyo and Ryuho off each quarter. Satisfied with his pilots’ disposition, he reduced power with his left hand, moved the diamond-shaped flap-selector lever with his right, and felt the drag as his dive flaps split top and bottom.

To a dive-bomber pilot, the standard seventy-degree angle seemed nearly vertical. The pilot tilted forward against his shoulder harness, concentrating on the picture in his reflector sight. From roll-in at 14,000 feet to release and pullout at about 2,500 was perhaps thirty seconds. In that time, much had to be done right for any chance of a hit.

First, the airplane had to be balanced for a smooth dive. Too much elevator trim or too little imparted excess stick pressure up or down. Also, the aircraft had to track straight, without veering port or starboard. The reflector sight had a ball in a housing much like that in the turn-and-bank indicator. By rudder trim or physical finesse, the bomber pilot kept the ball centered, exactly the way a fighter pilot did in aerial gunnery.

Next, the pilot selected his desired point of impact, or POI: the spot on the vessel where his bomb would do the most damage. Center of the flight deck was favored on carriers, or perhaps somewhat aft if enemy aircraft were spotted for launch. But the sight’s aiming dot or “pipper” had to be offset to allow for ship’s motion and wind. Because a warship under attack was likely making thirty knots or better, the aim point or POA was moved ahead of the desired POI. If the ship was steaming upwind, the bombing solution was simplified: Put the pipper on the bow and wait as long as you dared before toggling the bomb.

But if the attack was made crosswind, the bomb’s fall line would be affected. In that case, the pilot juggled rudder feet and stick hand, moving the pipper accordingly.

Despite the technology, dive-bombing was more art than science. One pilot compared it to playing the violin: Everybody knew the basics but individuals had their own techniques. Because range errors exceed deflection, most pilots liked to dive from the bow. Diving from behind, the tendency was to go shallow toward the end of the dive, resulting in a miss astern.

Several feet behind the pilot sat the radioman-gunner. The seventy-degree dive angle placed him nearly flat on his back, looking at the upper air. Usually he had his canopy open and twin .30-caliber machine guns deployed against interceptors. But some pilots liked the backseater to face forward, calling off the altitude that unwound at the rate of about three hundred feet per second.

Nearing 2,500 feet, when things looked right—or even if they didn’t—the pilot pressed his bomb release. In the SBD it was a red button stamped “B” on top of the stick. But there was also a manual release below the throttle quadrant. Some pilots pressed the button, then immediately leaned forward and left, grasped the two-handled manual release, and gave it a tug. They had to keep the plane properly aligned with the aim point or the bomb would be skewed off target. To avoid slewing the bomb, some pilots advocated hitting the “pickle,” then counting “One potato” before beginning a pullout.

Below and behind him, the bomb was released from its shackles. The bomb displacing fork or “trapeze” arced downward and forward, tossing the bomb clear of the propeller before retracting under pressure of a heavy coil spring. The weapon was on its way, accelerating at thirty-two feet per second per second, acting on its particular ballistic characteristics.

At about 240 knots from twenty-five hundred feet, the ocean was filling the windscreen with breathtaking speed. The effort required to change the vector of ten thousand pounds of airplane was considerable, especially in the days before boosted controls. Typically a pilot wrapped both hands around the black plastic stick handle and tugged it toward his stomach.

The force of six to eight times normal g descended on him, from the head downward. With a 160-pound aviator temporarily weighing 960 to 1,280 pounds, the body reacted adversely. The chin was forced onto the chest. Blood was pushed toward the lower extremities, and the eyes suffered first. Pilots experienced grayout as color bleached away, or full blackout: temporary blindness. The thorax felt constricted, limiting breathing.

Then consciousness returned. Most pilots found themselves with the nose on the horizon and began cleaning up the airplane. They shoved up the power, pulled in the flaps, and turned toward the rendezvous while scores of sailors they’d never seen before earnestly tried to kill them. The huge majority made it: An unlucky few fell to enemy gunners. A handful never recovered from the high-g pullout and went straight into the water.

Ramage divided his dozen Dauntlesses between Ryuho and Junyo. Pushing toward the roll-in point at twelve thousand feet, they drew heavy flak, accurate in altitude but wide in deflection. As per doctrine, the leader took the closer ship, which, according to the Japanese disposition, was Ryuho. The second division leader, Lieutenant Louis L. Bangs, proceeded to Junyo.

Ramage was about to pop his dive brakes when he heard his gunner, Chief Radioman David Cawley, on the intercom: “Zekes overhead.” Looking around, the skipper saw a Zero make a halfhearted pass at the SBDs. As it turned away, Ramage thought, “No guts.”

Meanwhile, Killer Kane took his Hellcat division down ahead of the SBDs, enthusiastically strafing to help suppress flak. The CAG triggered long, satisfying bursts that pelted the deck and gun tubs with eighty .50-caliber slugs per second. Kane had brought twenty-four hundred rounds three hundred miles; there was no point taking them home.

The timing was excellent. As Ramage nosed into his dive, the carrier steadied upon an easterly heading. Ramage led his first division in a near-vertical attack, diving from the bow, which was the preferred method. Another Enterprise bomber leader, Richard H. Best, had advocated that approach at Midway: “It forces you to get steep.”

Peering through his reflector sight, Ramage saw the enemy flight deck outlined in sparkling muzzle flashes. Tracers and bursting stuff flashed ahead of him as he plunged downward at three hundred feet per second. The heavy shells were exploding behind him now, though the tracers seemed curling into his sight. But he hung on: This was the day and hour and minute that his first CO had anticipated when he pledged to make James D. Ramage the second-best bomber in the Pacific Fleet.

At point-blank range of fifteen hundred feet, Jig Ramage toggled his bomb. Freed of half a ton, the Dauntless leaped as his right hand went to the flap-selector handle.

Several things happened at once. Ramage’s bomb exploded close astern in the ship’s wake. The explosion rocked his plane. Then Dave Cawley’s twin .30s were firing: a bad sign.

Ramage looked up and almost flinched. An equally astonished Zero pilot gaped from “about fifteen feet away.” The Japanese honked back on his stick, climbing at “an impossible angle.” The CO began looking for his chicks: A quick rendezvous was essential if anybody was getting home.

Three of Ramage’s other five pilots dropped close aboard; one claimed a peripheral hit through the deck edge. The fifth pilot experienced “hung ordnance” and was unable to release.

Lieutenant Van Eason’s four VT-10 Avengers also went for Ryuho. Her CAP objected to their intentions, but Grim Reaper Hellcats ran interference. In all, Torpedo 10 saw a dozen bandits, and two gunners fired at those that got past the F6Fs. One Zero dropped toward the water; the big Grummans proceeded unimpeded.

Making glide-bombing attacks on Ryuho, the Avengers drew heavy flak from the battleship Nagato, which even unlimbered her sixteen-inchers. But the big bursting shells did no damage, and the “Buzzard Brigade” TBFs dropped their sixteen bombs largely undeterred. The pilots and aircrewmen squinted through the smoke and spray to count eight hits; Captain Tokio Komei merely logged “slight damage” from near misses.

Meanwhile, Lou Bangs took his VB-10 division and fighter escorts toward Junyo. Descending toward the target, Bangs extended his dive flaps earlier than expected, prompting his section leader to dive on the most immediate flattop. Lieutenant Junior Grade Harold F. Grubiss therefore attacked Hiyo with his two pilots, including a Lexington tagalong, Lieutenant Junior Grade Jack Wright, who had diverted to the Big E the day before. Bangs claimed a hit that blew several aircraft off Junyo’s flight deck, while his two wingmen reported hits near his. Meanwhile, Grubiss saw his bomb strike Hiyo, which in fact reported such damage.

As the Lexington squadrons attacked, their junior partner was also on hand. San Jacinto had been able to allot only two planes to the mission, but Torpedo 51’s Lieutenant Commander Donald J. Melvin and his wingman, Ensign Jack O. Guy, followed Air Group 16. Targeting Hiyo, they opened their bomb bay doors and attacked from altitude, but Melvin’s quarter-tonners refused to release, compelling him to pull up and try again. Guy dropped from about five thousand—an extremely optimistic endeavor—but the skipper thought his youngster may have scored.

Upon recovering from his abortive run, Melvin found himself positioned over a destroyer. He went down to 2,500 feet and dropped manually, claiming 75 percent hits with one bomb just off the bow. In fact, no imperial destroyers were damaged on June 20, and no cruisers in B Force were struck.

Two aborts depleted Belleau Wood’s outbound formation, but the remaining six Hellcats and four Avengers tacked onto 58.1, trailing Lexington ’s air group, which went after the center carrier force. When Bombing 16 circled the area to tighten formation before attacking, Lieutenant George Brown, apparently thinking the attack had begun, took his Avengers down into a maelstrom of flak, largely unescorted. Brown drew a bead on a large carrier, and his squadron mate Ben Tate recalled, “We had everybody shooting at us.”

Brown split his division to execute an “anvil” attack on His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s ship Hiyo. Approaching from the north, Brown went wide to the right, then turned in to attack from the bow. Lieutenants Junior Grade Benjamin C. Tate and Warren R. Omark broke port, attacking from the starboard beam and quarter, respectively.

During the approach, Ensign William D. Luton made his torpedo attack on Junyo or Ryuho as Brown led the other two toward Hiyo. One of Brown’s wingmen, Lieutenant Junior Grade Warren R. Omark, described the attack on the two-year-old flattop:

“Brownie, Ben Tate, and I fanned out to approach from different angles. The attack course took us over the outlying screen of destroyers, then cruisers, and finally the battleships. This screen had to be penetrated in order to reach the proper range for launching torpedoes against the carrier. The antiaircraft fire was very intense, and I took as much evasive action as I could.

“During the attack, Brownie’s aircraft was hit by AA and caught fire. I think one of the remarkable stories of the war then took place. AMM2c George H. Platz and ARM2c Ellis C. Babcock were Brownie’s crewmen, and, knowing their plane was afire and unable to reach Brownie on the intercom, they parachuted and witnessed the attack from the water.

“We came in at about four hundred feet from the water to get a satisfactory launch of our torpedoes and dropped them on converging courses, which presumably did not allow the enemy carrier to take effective evasive action.”

It worked. Captain Toshiyuki Yokoi was unable to thread his twenty-four-thousand-ton carrier through the Neptune’s web that VT-24 flung at him. At least one torpedo hit the target: Hiyo took a Mark 13 in the starboard quarter, and maybe another as well. Her hull was opened to the Pacific Ocean, which immediately began filling the available space inside. With her steering gear wrecked, “Wandering Falcon” was fatally crippled.

Obviously upset at the successful attack on Hiyo, Zekes chased the Avengers in futile anger. However, Tate and Omark evaded the CAP and independently came across Brown’s blackened, battle-damaged Avenger. Brown was flying slowly, just off the water. “He held up his right arm,” recalled Tate, “which was all bloodstained. I tried to keep him on my wing to guide him back. I called him on the radio but he didn’t answer with anything understandable. I lost him in the dark.”

Omark was the last to see George Brown. “He acted stunned, like a football player who had been hit in the head. I turned on my lights to help him, but evidently his light system was shot, because he didn’t turn on his. I lost him in the dark about an hour later.”

Japanese gun crews were frantic to fend off the attackers, but Imperial Navy flak left something to be desired. It had nothing to compare with American fire-control radar, let alone the VT fuse.

Main batteries on battleships and cruisers could fire “incendiary shrapnel” rounds with time fuses, but the phosphorous eruptions were far more impressive than effective. Comparable to the American 5.38 dual-purpose weapon was Japan’s 5.40: a similar round of lower velocity.

The most numerous Japanese AA gun was the 25mm cannon of French origin. Deployed in single, twin, and triple mounts, it was an effective weapon firing 220 rounds per minute per barrel. It could be controlled by mechanical director but probably was more often fired under “local control,” with gun captains choosing their own targets. Consequently, though Imperial Navy ships were capable of throwing a lot of steel into the air, Nihon Kaigun lacked in accuracy throughout the war. Over B Force that evening, only three Avengers fell to Japanese flak—small consolation to the crews killed or ditched.

The American air combat claims over B Force were unusually accurate. Air Group 652 lost eleven Zekes in dogfights plus three more ditched afterward. The three Hellcat squadrons escorting the attackers claimed eleven kills, bomber gunners four more. Conversely, the attackers lost five planes to Joshima’s pilots, who claimed nine “confirmed” and two probables.