The Nugget Read online

  Flight training was enjoyable. I had no trouble with ground school, avionics, aircraft engineering, and the like. The flying was great, made more so by the undercurrents of unspoken urgency that permeated Pensacola. About the time that most of my class was getting a little cocky, the Navy sent down a pilot who’d been secretly seconded to the RAF during the Battle of Britain. He soon knocked the wind out of our sails with his quiet but fearsome stories of going up against the Luftwaffe. I finished training in late ’41 and then went to advanced training at San Diego in October. And now, here I was: an honest-to-God carrier pilot, or, nugget first class.

  Now I wanted to reassure my family that I was okay and also tell them some of what we’d been doing. That, of course, was not allowed. All letters had to be read by the squadron censor, who, inevitably, was Lieutenant Quantrill. He’d explained in detail what we could say and what we couldn’t, so my note home was filled with platitudes about being on a great ship, the good chow, being really busy, meeting exceptional pilots, and the fact that we were taking the fight to the treacherous enemy. The rest of it was made up of questions: how’s my younger brother, is the Omaha Works doing well, are you getting enough to eat now that there’s rationing, any tornadoes yet, etc.

  I’d left my academy ring with them when I headed west for San Diego. That had been a precarious moment, with all of us understanding the reason for doing that but no one willing to express it in words. A lot of the other pilots who were married had left their rings with their wives. Some had even written final letters to be sent in the event that they were declared killed in action. I’d looked in Snead’s stuff, but hadn’t found one. I finished my letter with some upbeat, “I’m fine and my squadron is great” words. Then I’d just sat there at my little fold-down desk, my mind in neutral, until I realized I needed to get my unsealed letter to Quantrill’s basket in the squadron office if I had any hope of getting it off in Pearl.

  Pearl was in such a shambles that the usual routine of an air group fly-off wasn’t possible. Most of us stayed aboard the ship and got some sleep. There was an island-wide sundown-to-sunup curfew so the fleshpots of Honolulu, such as they were, were in limbo. The officers’ club had finally been cleared of wounded but now would require a couple weeks’ worth of sanitizing and repainting. The Enterprise ship’s company (the crew) faced the usual round-the-clock flurry of on-loading everything conceivable in the way of supplies, food, bunker oil, aviation gasoline, ordnance, and replacement aircraft.

  Getting some much-needed sleep was enough for most of us, but our “vacation” didn’t last long. On the third day in port we got some more nuggets to replace our losses. We also received six replacement aircraft, which meant pilots were needed to check out the new SBDs that had arrived, in sections as usual, via cargo ships. I thought there might be competition to get one of the new birds, but more experienced hands remembered what it was like to take what they called a “factory bird” up for the first time. There were sometimes unpleasant surprises, so we nuggets were assigned to take our pick and then to join the mechanics in physically mounting the wings and testing the avionics, the hydraulics, and the gun systems. It was during this period that I really got to know the SBD, working alongside the mechs, finding loose wires, unconnected piping, flat tires, and even dinged propeller blades. Apparently the Douglas Aircraft Company was producing the dive bombers so fast and the need was so urgent that the new planes were never test-flown. They left that to the operational flight crews, who, after all, had the biggest stake in the plane performing to specs.

  Rooster Baynes joined me on the second day of the delivery process and pitched right in wherever he could help. He’d been told I’d asked for him as gunner and was apparently pleased with that assignment. I think he’d also heard that I had put him in for a commendation. The SBD gunners were special people. They came from the various enlisted ratings but their role was as much co-pilot as gunner. Rooster had a colorful reputation, which included some dramatic run-ins with shore patrols in various ports. He was a dedicated bachelor and apparently a master escape artist, a useful talent when an unsuspecting husband came home unannounced. He was a wizard with carrier plane avionics, a speed-key with the Morse code, and he loved his guns, as evidenced by his efforts to trade the carrier’s ordnance chief our SBD’s twin thirty for a twin fifty. The chief just laughed and told Rooster to get lost.

  That night the skipper called a meeting in the ready room to inform us that we were going back out, this time to attack Wake Island. The Japanese had invaded Wake Island four days after they hit Pearl. The first time they were driven off by the small but determined Marine garrison; the second time they sent two carriers, whose bombers and fighters overwhelmed the vastly outnumbered Marines and Navy defenders. Wake was 2,300 miles away from Pearl, and actually closer to Tokyo, which was “only” 1,990 miles away. According to naval intelligence the Japs were bulking up their logistics capabilities on Wake. The scuttlebutt on the Big E, however, was that the real reason we were going out was because Halsey wasn’t happy with our last outing and was itching to bomb something. There was no thought of retaking the island, so the plan was to make a surprise attack, and then run back to Pearl. Everybody had an opinion about the mission, but I agreed with the skipper: he thought it was more a case of showing the Japs that no place in the Pacific was safe from American carriers.

  The strike date for the Wake attack was set for February 24th. It turned out to be a costly effort with very little to show for it. Basically, the intel was all wrong: there was just about nothing there. We made the first strike, went back to the carrier, rearmed, and then hit Marcus Island, another godforsaken outpost in the vast emptiness of the central Pacific. The AA fire was more intense and we lost more planes and pilots. We had little to show for it except more forlorn seabags in storage.

  Back in Pearl, the air group went ashore and Enterprise went into the shipyard for some mysterious “configuration changes.” None of us knew what that meant, and we spent the next month and a half integrating replacement planes and pilots, training more nuggets, and taking some time off down at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Each squadron got a long weekend on Waikiki and the chance to behave like aviators ashore. My sojourn to the Oklahoma kept my drinking limited to two beers a night. I caught a lot of static over that but I couldn’t erase the memories of sitting on the battleship’s overturned hull, watching sailors burn in the harbor right in front of me. She was still there, although now we’d heard they were trying to pull her carcass upright.

  At some point, Hornet slipped out of Pearl, which gave rise to all sorts of rumors. The carrier was going to sea—but without her air group? Only towards the end of our six-week stint ashore did we learn that the Big E had hosted the Doolittle Raid over Tokyo, launching a clutch of stripped-down Army Air Corps B-25 Mitchell bombers that proceeded to strew bombs all over downtown Tokyo at rush hour. They then flew over Japan and into China, where some of them made safe landings. In terms of wartime damage, the strike was more like a stunt than a real bombing attack, but all of us could imagine the consternation in the Japanese capital at the sight of American bombers roaring low overhead and dropping bombs in downtown Tokyo.

  Following the shock and shame of Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle Raid was an amazing morale booster at home. Morale needed boosting: the Japanese had conquered the Philippines, Burma, Java, Singapore, the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, and the Solomon Islands. They’d destroyed the last effective Allied naval fighting force in the western Pacific at the Battle of the Java Sea. They’d bombed Darwin, Australia, and taken Guam. Our pinpricks in the Marshalls and at Wake didn’t look like much in comparison.

  SEVEN

  The Hornet came back from the Tokyo raid and was joined in Pearl by Enterprise and Yorktown. While the Big E and Hornet began the familiar process of restuffing their guts, Yorktown went into dry dock for battle damage repairs. The rumor mills began to grind in earnest when all the air group skippers were called to a big-deal meeti
ng at Admiral Nimitz’s headquarters up in the Makalapa crater. Three carriers in port at the same time had to mean something big was up, but as mere pilots we were not being consulted. One thing for sure—we were all more than ready to stop training and go do something for real, like killing Japs. We didn’t have long to wait.

  In the last week of May 1942, all three carriers set out from Pearl, accompanied by every cruiser and destroyer able to get up steam and come with us. We went out and turned southwest at 16 knots, as if headed back to the Coral Sea for the benefit of the Jap spies in Honolulu. One day later we turned due north and kicked it up to 25 knots. We hoped the first day’s track had thrown off any Jap sub surveillance stationed near Pearl. All hands were told that the task forces were maintaining radio silence, including aircraft radios. No transmissions, not even to test repairs. Complete silence. All message traffic between ships was by flashing light. Fighting Six flew protective combat air patrols, called CAP, over the formations. Surprisingly, Scouting Six flew no search missions. Their planes were all reconfigured as full-fledged dive bombers. The only disappointing note was that Halsey wasn’t going with us. He’d come down with some horrible skin disease called shingles and had been hospitalized. In his place were two rear admirals: Frank Jack Fletcher, an aviator who’d won the Medal of Honor at Veracruz, and Raymond Spruance, a battleship admiral but considered one of the smartest flag officers in the Navy. We chuckled when we thought about that: it took two rear admirals to replace one Vice Admiral Halsey.

  By the first of June we were meandering somewhere north and west of Pearl. At noon the admirals’ staff intelligence officers fanned out to the ready rooms to tell us what was going on. It seemed that the Japanese had decided to take Midway Island, a tiny speck in the ocean manned by a detachment of US Marines. As its name implied, Midway was a strategically located atoll that was perfect for ships making the big jump all the way across the Pacific to refuel and get fresh water. The Japs apparently figured that if they could occupy Midway, they could harass any US Navy forces headed west. Subs could base there and then lay siege to Hawaiian waters. They were bringing four of their fleet carriers to the party, having learned at Wake that carrier air made the difference between success and failure. Our mission: to attack and sink those four carriers.

  The intel guys made one thing perfectly clear: we would have to achieve surprise to pull this off. We had three carriers; they had four. Some of theirs had made the attack on Pearl last December. The Japs had been victorious throughout most of their efforts across the entire western Pacific. We would not be dealing with nuggets; we would be dealing with their first team, which they called the Kido Butai. To keep our presence a secret, locating the enemy carriers would be entrusted to a squadron of Catalina flying boats, called PBYs, which were much smaller versions of the Japs’ Kawanishi seaplanes, operating out of Midway. The three American carriers would not send out long-range search planes but would depend on the Catalinas to find the Jap carrier force for us. If it all worked, they’d have no idea there were three American carriers out there waiting to ambush them when they attacked Midway Island.

  The timing would be precarious. The Japs would launch strikes against Midway before sending in their amphibious corps to land, take, and occupy the island. The PBYs were based on Midway. They would have to locate the Jap carriers before their home base fell into Jap hands. While the Japs were busy falling upon hapless little Midway, we would fall upon them. That was the plan.

  The intel officer finished his brief and we just looked at him. Even we nuggets, which included one “medium old hand,” namely me, and all the new nuggets, understood that somebody was making a really big gamble here. The three American carriers, Enterprise, Yorktown, and Hornet, were all that we had left in the Pacific. The Japs were sending only half their fleet of nine carriers. We’d have to sink them all if we were to prevent the seizure of Midway. That was a tall order.

  “I know,” the briefer said, sensing the doubt in the room. “Lotta ifs and maybes. But, look: working for us is the fact that we know they’re coming, we know their objective, and thus we know the general area where there ought to be four Jap fleet carriers, who do not know we’re anywhere nearby. If we can put strike forces over their decks while they’re busy beating up on little Midway Island, we can hurt them really bad. Working against us is what we’ve learned in the southwest Pacific: that once opposing carriers become aware of one another, everybody’s gonna get hurt. So the side that gets the first strike in has the best chance to actually destroy the other side’s carriers. After that, you end up trading strikes.”

  “Sounds like everything depends on finding them before they find us,” the skipper said.

  “Yes, it does,” the intel officer said. “So, for planning purposes, we have to assume that’s how it’s gonna work out.”

  “Why aren’t we looking for them, again?” the skipper asked.

  “If they see a PBY overhead, they’ll assume it’s from Midway. If they see an SBD, they’ll know there’s an American carrier out there somewhere. That’s why we’re not searching. That’s also why Scouting Six is being hung with bombs. They’re not going to be scouting this time. They’re all SBDs, so they’re gonna be bombing. Think of it: if we could sink all four of their carriers, over three hundred aircraft and as many front-line, highly experienced pilots would have nowhere to land.”

  The ready room went silent. In a way it was all clear enough: if three American carriers could get the jump on four Jap carriers, we might change the entire situation in the Pacific. Right now the Japs were winning everywhere. Take out almost half their carrier fleet and we might even put them on the defensive.

  “Which carriers, again?” the Skipper asked.

  “Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, and Soryu,” the intel officer replied.

  Quantrill put up a hand. “How in the hell do we know all this?” he demanded to know.

  “Spies,” the briefer said, quickly. “More than that I can’t tell you, but we do feel the intel is solid. We’ll find out when the Catalinas sound the alarm.”

  For the next three days we bored holes in the north Pacific Ocean, staying under the cover of some truly shitty weather in case the Japs did put out scouts. We spent our time trying to fully absorb the strike plan, which envisioned all three carriers launching everything they had to make a coordinated attack on the Japanese flattops. It was a great plan. Everyone thought so. On the other hand, none of the carriers had ever attempted a simultaneous launch of three entire air wings.

  Questions began to surface as we learned more. Things like: the bombers and the fighters will head to the target at 15,000 feet. The torpedo bombers, on the other hand, needed to be down low when they got to the target. Were they to go first, while we bombers waited to see what they accomplished? Or did the admirals envision torpedo bombers skimming the waves on their way into the carrier formation while SBDs, both Bombing Six and Scouting Six, fell on them from high altitude. The reaction from the admirals’ staff seemed to be: Gee, those are really good questions.

  The first Catalina flying boat sent out on the third came up and announced he’d found a Jap formation while we were still struggling to figure out the details. Immediately we started to make our strike preps, only to be told, no, wait, those are Japs, but we think it’s the Midway invasion force. That’s not who we’re looking for. Stand down but stay ready.

  Stay ready? We’d been ready for a week. More Catalinas fanned out into their sectors, searching 200 miles from Midway with no results except more crappy weather. Then came reports from Midway that Jap snoopers had been sighted. Marine fighter air went up after the reconnaissance planes only to watch as Jap carrier bombers arrived and descended on the island. Then silence.

  We now knew that their carriers were close enough to Midway to make a strike. But where? The range of possibilities covered several thousand square miles of ocean. All of us stayed up late on the night of the third, but if our bosses knew anything, they weren’t telling us
. For all we knew in our sweaty little ready rooms, our carrier task force might run smack into theirs in the middle of the night. Finally the skipper told everyone to hit the sack. I’m confident they’ll call us when they need us, he said with a perfectly straight face.

  They called at 0330 the next morning, which was the 4th of June. We wolfed down the traditional steak and eggs in the wardroom, then suited up and went to the ready room—to wait some more. We could feel the Big E’s huge hull rumbling as she pressed into the night, surrounded by destroyers and cruisers busy keeping station. A briefer showed up and told us the Catalinas had located the Jap carriers and that they were 230 miles away. Enterprise and our other two flattops were burning up the ocean in an effort to close the distance between us. That many miles meant that our heavily loaded SBDs could make it out there, but having enough gas to get back was an open question. One thing the staff briefer said got our attention. Admiral Fletcher, he said, wanted a coordinated strike by the three air groups. He intended to launch everything he had, but he wanted that huge gaggle to arrive over the enemy flight decks simultaneously, so as to overwhelm the enemy’s defenses. The skipper put up a hand.

  “That means we’ll launch our CAP fighters, our escorting fighters, then our bombers, then our torpedo bombers, in that order, right? All three carriers?”

  “Correct.”

  “That means we will all have to wait, orbiting the task force, burning precious gas, until the last plane from the slowest carrier gets airborne, right?”

  “Um.”

  “That won’t work, Commander,” the skipper said, as we digested the prospect of orbiting for an hour, or more, before heading out to do business. “You need to go back to flag plot and point that out to everyone who’ll listen to you. Otherwise, you’re talking about sending the whole air group on this wonderful coordinated strike with gas tanks half empty. We might get there, but ain’t nobody coming back.”