4 JUNE 1942 - "PILOTS MAN YOUR PLANES"
"Sam"
It was still dark on the morning of June 4, 1942 when Tom Barnes's voice queried, "Are you awake? Lets go get some coffee". Now the wait was almost over! I reached for my flight clothes, shoes and socks. We were sitting in the dim lit wardroom sipping coffee with the XO, Dixie Kiefer, when General Quarters sounded. After the pilots had gathered in the room, briefing by the Air Group Commander, LCDR Oscar Pederson, laid out our plan of attack, and then closed with an emphasis on the fact that we must first wait. Await discovery of the Japanese carriers, hopefully before their scouts found us. The success of our game plan relied heavily upon the element of surprise.
Arriving in the VF ready room just off the flight deck in the forward section of the island structure, we checked the flight schedule grease-penciled on the Plexiglas schedule board. Tom and I were each assigned to lead a four-plane division, but Tom's assignment was not to his liking. His division was listed as "standby."
USS Yorktown (CV-5) has turned into the wind and is beginning to launch aircraft
"How did you work that?", he asked, pointing to my name as leader of the second division of the eight-plane strike escort. The fighter escort for Yorktown's elderly "Devastator" TBDs of torpedo squadron VT-3 would be: 1st Division, LCDR* John S. Thach, ENS** R. A. M. Dibb; LT (jg)*** B. T. Macomber, ENS E. R. Bassett.; 2nd Division, MACH**** T. F. Cheek, ENS Dan C. Sheedy; LT (jg) E. S. McCuskey, ENS M. K. Bright.
NOTE: * Lieutenant Commander; ** Ensign; ***Lieutenant (Junior Grade); ****Machinist (actually, Warrant Machinist)
As navigational data appeared on the teleprinter screen, we entered it on our aircraft plotting boards. First to be plotted was Point Option, that mythical point that traveled at a set speed on a predetermined course, and from which all maneuvering of the Task Force was reckoned. From Point Option, we computed our courses, and estimated flight times and fuel consumption to and from the expected position of the First Carrier Striking Force. The answers we came up with were anything but encouraging. From the standpoint of fuel, the anticipated position of the Japanese force was beyond the effective combat range of our Grumman F4F-4s.
Someone else had reached the same conclusion, for shortly, an order came down to scratch the VF escort. Torpedo Three would have to go it alone. Thach bolted from the ready room heading up the ladder in the direction of the bridge.
Returning half an hour later, he erased the names of McCuskey and Bright from the schedule. The escort would go, he announced, less my second section. Six F4Fs would ride herd on the twelve TBDs of Torpedo Three (VT-3). Yorktown's two "Dauntless" SBD dive bomber squadrons, Bombing Three (VB -3) and Scouting Five (VS -5), would go without fighter escort, depending instead on speed and altitude for protection.
Continuing his briefing, Thach stressed the need for complete radio silence. Radio silence would be broken only in a combat situation, and then, first names, or nicknames, would be used as call signs. This was a practice already in use by the Yorktown. "Jimmy," he continued, would be his call sign and then he noted a problem. Among us, there were two Toms, Barnes and myself. Thach found an immediate solution. Turning to me he said, "We will call you Sam!" Through the ensuing years of our association, to Thach, I remained Sam.
"Let’s Go!"
At dawn's first light, we listened as Yorktown launched its first combat air patrol of six F4Fs, followed by ten SBDs to search sectors in the expected direction of the enemy carriers. Then tension began to mount in the ready room as the first enemy contact reports appeared on the teleprinter screen. A PBY searching from Midway was the first to break the silence, reporting the sighting of a large formation of enemy aircraft on a course to Midway.
Then Midway reported it was striking back with bombing and torpedo attacks on the Japanese carrier force. Next was the report that Midway was under attack by planes from the First Carrier Striking Force. Finally the news we waited for; a PBY had sighted and reported the position of the enemy carriers. There was a rush to plot this reported position of the IJN carriers and revise courses. It was our turn to step up to the plate.
Task Force 16, the Hornet and Enterprise, operating twenty-five miles south of the Yorktown, began the launch of two strike groups at 0700. Each group was composed of two units of SBD dive bombers, one TBD torpedo squadron, and ten F4F-4 fighter escorts. Departure from the Task Force was delayed by each group until its fighter and dive bomber units had climbed to altitude and formed as an attack group with the group commander in the lead.
In the case of the Enterprise group, this was twenty-thousand feet. This proved to be a time, and most importantly, a fuel consuming method of rendezvous. The torpedo squadrons, VT-8 (Hornet) and VT-6 (Enterprise), the last to launch, proceeded independently on course to target at lower altitudes. Held in reserve, Yorktown's strike group waited.
At 0840, the anticipated summons came over Yorktown's loudspeakers, "Pilots, man your planes".
SBD "Dauntless" dive bombers of Yorktown's VB-3 prepare for launch at the Japanese First Carrier Striking Force on the morning of 4 June 1942.
First to launch from Yorktown were the torpedo-laden TBDs of VT-3, closely followed by the SBDs of VB-3, each armed with either a five hundred or thousand-pound bomb. VT-3 immediately departed on course to target while the SBDs circled the task force climbing to altitude. To conserve fuel, take-off for the fighters was delayed until 0905. The faster cruising speeds of the F4Fs and SBDs would allow these units to overtake the lumbering TBDs before they reached the target area.
When the order came to man our aircraft, Thach gathered us in a huddle outside the ready room. His instructions were short and to the point. "Whatever happens, stick together! None of this "lone wolf" business! "You will only get yourself killed and won’t do the rest of us any good! Another thing–lean your mixture as much as you can--save your fuel!
"Cheek, you and Sheedy stick close to the torpedoes, just astern and about a thousand feet above. Stop anyone trying to get to them. I will be three or four thousand feet above you and give you high cover. Lets go!"
To the Enemy Carriers
Thach was the first to sight Yorktown's TBD formation, and with a slight waggle of the ailerons he raised the nose of his fighter and began a gentle climb. Glancing down and ahead, I caught sight of the torpedo planes and moved to take position on them. Torpedo Three was cruising in a compact two division, stepped-down formation. In each division there were two three-plane sections flying in the standard Vee pattern. The first division flew in a left echelon while the second division tucked in close to the lead section in an echelon to the right. The pattern afforded the rear seat gunners a broad field of fire; a fact that would soon be very evident to me.
Due to the difference in our cruising speeds, to maintain station above and to the rear of the TBD formation, I began slow, lazy turns to the right and left of course. I had just started a slow drift back to the left of course when a geyser of water suddenly erupted from the sea ahead and to the left of the formation. Startled? Yes! Explanation? None would come to mind at the moment. Days later, I would learn that the Yorktown Group Commander's bomb had inadvertently been released when LCDR Leslie set the bomb's electrical arming switch. He immediately broke radio silence and warned the other pilots to arm their bombs manually, but not before two others lost their bombs in the same manner. There was no detonation as the unarmed missile struck the water. What I had witnessed was the splash of a thousand-pound pebble dropped into the sea.
As we cruised toward the target, events of which we were totally unaware had been taking place.
The strike group from the Japanese carriers had brushed aside Midway's defending fighters and bombed and strafed the atoll's installations, inflicting moderate damage and light casualties. In return, Midway aircraft had harried the First Carrier Striking Force with a series of uncoordinated, single-group torpedo, glide and high-level bombing attacks. Though the torpedo and dive bombing crews suffered major losses in these attacks stretching out over a period of an hour and a half, in the end not one of the Japanese carriers had its paintwork scratched by an American bomb or torpedo.
The Hornet Air Group was having its problems. They had failed to find the Japanese carrier force. Their ten escorting F4Fs were running short of fuel and would soon ditch after failing to make it back to their carrier. The SBDs would also soon be facing a fuel shortage and abort their mission. Some would divert to Midway while the remainder returned to Task Force 16, having never sighted their target.
The Enterprise Air Group was fairing little better. The SBDs led by the Group Commander, LCDR Wade McClusky, had also failed to find the target at its anticipated position and were continuing to search. After climbing to twenty-thousand feet, the ten escorting fighters from Enterprise's VF-6 had mistakenly followed Hornet's torpedo squadron VT-8 instead of their own torpedo squadron VT-6 when they departed on their mission. Torpedo Eight chose to fly a more southerly course than did the rest of Air Group-8, and flew directly to their target, and their deaths. Arriving over the target, VF-6 reported it was also running low on fuel, aborted the mission and returned to Enterprise.