THE ROUNDTABLE FORUM
Official newsletter of the Battle of Midway
Roundtable
http://www.midway42.org/
"To promote awareness and understanding of the
great battle,
and to honor the men who fought and won it."
11 JULY 2008..........ISSUE NO. 2008-26..........OUR
11th YEAR
=============== AROUND THE TABLE ===============
Members' topics in this issue:
1. How Experienced Were the BOM’s SBD
Pilots?
2. Were the U.S. Carriers Out of Position as
the BOM Began?
3. Medals for the Hornet Air Group at Midway
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1. HOW EXPERIENCED WERE THE BOM’s SBD
PILOTS? (see issue #24, 25)
Ed. note: Clay Fisher brings us a primary source report on the experience
level of the Hornet’s dive bomber pilots.
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7 July 2008
CDR Clayton E. Fisher, USN-Ret
Southern California
BOM vet, SBD pilot, VB-8, USS Hornet (CV-8), TF-16
I think the question how experienced were the Hornet's
SBD pilots during the BOM needs a little clarification. All the Hornet
SBD pilots had very limited experience in dive bombing during their
operational flight training in F3F-3 biplane fighters and SBC-4 biplane dive
bombers. VS-8 and VB-8 squadrons assigned to the Hornet flew SBC-4
dive bombers and were able to practice dive bombing using miniature smoke bombs
on stationary targets until the Hornet deployed from Norfolk to San Diego
on 4 March 1942. That was the end of the dive bombing practice in SBC-4s.
VS-8 and VB-8
were assigned SBD-3s when the Hornet arrived at San Diego. My first SBD-3 flight was on March
25th and I only logged about eight hours familiarization flights before
the Hornet deployed from San Diego to NAS Alameda. The Hornet
dive bomber pilots didn't again fly the SBDs until the Hornet
arrived in Pearl Harbor after launching the B-25s to bomb Tokyo, 18 April
1942.
I only flew
three familiarization flights before the dive bombers flew back aboard
the Hornet on April 30th. Normally you did
some FCLP [Field Carrier Landing Practice] in a new type
aircraft before you attempted to land aboard a carrier. All
the junior SBD pilots made their first carrier landing on the Hornet
sans FCLP.
During the Hornet
deployment to the south Pacific and her return to Pearl Harbor 26 May 1942, the
SBD pilots only flew 200-mile single plane searches. (I flew eleven searches.) On May 28th the SBDs flew back
aboard the Hornet. I don't remember ever even making a 70-degree
practice dive in the SBD. So it is
true; the Hornet junior SBD pilots made their first dive
bombing runs during the BOM.
The
difference in diving on stationary land targets vs. diving on a fast moving
ship doing erratic maneuvering is immense. Accurate dive bombing took a
lot of practice estimating target lead, and equally important was
maintaining rudder trim as your speed was changing during the dive.
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9 July 2008
Northern
California
I
read with great interest the comments about the experience of the SBD pilots
and crew. Just a month ago I spent a day with Swede Vejtasa [VS-5 and
VF-42 pilot on Yorktown] going over pilot training at Pensacola in 1939
as part of my research on my dad. My dad, ENS Tom Reeves, was 3 months
behind Swede at Pensacola and then ended up being assigned to VS-5 on the Yorktown
in San Diego where he and Swede first met in early 1940.
A
couple of days ago I mentioned the discussion on the Roundtable to Swede and
asked him if he felt they were really ready for war after all their
training in VS-5, and his reply was "We were as ready as we could possibly
be." Swede goes on to say that
their squadron leader, Bill Burch, was a natural leader and pilot: “He did everything right." Burch constantly scheduled many exercises
during their days of training on the Yorktown before the war started,
even taking the squadron out to Death Valley where they practiced bombing
targets. The pilots dropped smoke bombs and later used bombs filled
with sand or water. When they were out to sea and doing war games with
the carriers, they were "attacked" by CAP fighters during the
exercises. Eventually, they went on to use live bombs on
"spars" that were being towed by the ships. And, of course,
they had plenty of practice doing strafing runs, dive bombing, carrier
landings, etc.
So,
by the time they went on their first mission to the Marshall-Gilberts on 1
February 1942, the Yorktown pilots "felt very confident" in
their abilities. The only thing they hadn't been able to
experience during their training was real anti-aircraft fire from the
ships and real bullets coming at them from enemy planes. The black puffs
of smoke from the anti-aircraft fire was something new to them, and I know my
dad's SBD was shook up pretty good from a close call.
Somehow
I doubt that the newer pilots coming aboard before the BOM could have had the
time to become as experienced as the pre-war pilots were.
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Ed.
note: Nancy’s message underscores the
difference in experience between the Yorktown and
Enterprise pilots vs. those in the Hornet air group, which were
the subject of Barrett Tillman’s original inquiry in issue #24. I’m reminded of Clay Fisher’s frequent
comment that their group commander, Stanhope Ring, would not even let them do
practice dives on their own destroyers.
Apparently, the Hornet pilots’ first dives on a moving
target afloat were on the afternoon of 4 June 1942, during the Hiryu strike.
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2. WERE THE U.S. CARRIERS OUT OF
POSITION AS THE BOM BEGAN? (see issue
#25)
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6 July 2008
CDR Richard C. Epps, USNR-Ret
Northern California
BOM vet, RM3/c, USS Aylwin (DD-355), TF-16
Thanks for publishing John Lundstrom’s “Admiral Nimitz and the Initial Placement of the U.S. Carriers
at Midway.” I hope that this will put an end to the charges that Rear Adm. Frank
Jack Fletcher disobeyed Nimitz’s order to be 200 miles north of Midway at 0700
4 June 1942.
There is another analysis that could
have happened in Fletcher’s staff, and that was that the IJN had already shown
that they were guilty of splitting their forces when going into combat. Knowing that, and when Ady first made
contact, his report indicated two IJN carriers. Fletcher had been advised that the Kido
Butai was made up with four fleet carriers, so he needed to guard against
possible attack from the northeast by the other two carriers. Since we were not on the bridge of the Yorktown,
and none of those critical of Fletcher were there, we have no way knowing
what led to his choices for the task forces’ course changes. We do know that the wind was from the east
and we steamed on that course for quite a while during air operations that
morning to launch our attack against the Kido Butai.
The armchair admirals were not there
and did not have to make their analysis on the same incomplete information
available during the early morning of 4 June 1942.
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4 July 2008
John Gresham
Virginia
Like others who make Midway a passion in
our historical studies, I cannot fathom the continuing criticism of those who
seem to think that Frank Jack Fletcher needs to be condemned for his command
decisions and conduct through the first three great carrier battles of the Great
Pacific War. My own reading of the man,
particularly on the critical day of 4 June, 1942, is that his own decisions of
the day were enablers for Raymond Spruance to make his own battle-winning calls
in America's greatest naval victory.
These include:
(1) Morning and afternoon
searches. Fletcher's order to have
Scouting 5 clear the American northern flank on the morning of June 4th was an
inspiration, in that it meant that there would be nothing that morning to worry
about from the north. It also meant
that there would be scouts for a second follow-up search after the morning
strikes, to find Kido Butai and Hiryu that afternoon. This ensured that when the SBDs on Enterprise
managed to get reorganized, they had solid targeting to do something useful.
(2) Command handover. Following the
first attack on Yorktown, Fletcher realized that he was going to lose
his situational awareness and would need to transfer his flag to a
cruiser. Given all the was going on at
the time, Fletcher wisely gave command to Spruance, a move for which he should
be always remembered for both its unselfishness and wisdom. It ensured that Spruance would go forth with
the attack on Hiryu that afternoon, and would maneuver Task Force 16 in
a manner that would keep it out of harm’s way in the days ahead.
These are just a few of the many good things Frank Jack Fletcher did on just
one vital day in a career that was dedicated to service to the United States of
America. Add to that a Medal of Honor
[for Vera Cruz, 1914], his Purple Heart awarded for his wounds suffered during
the dive bombing attack on Yorktown, and you have a Navy man we all
should be proud to call our own.
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3. MEDALS FOR THE HORNET AIR
GROUP AT MIDWAY
Ed.
note: Rich Leonard has compiled an
interesting list of the various awards, other than the Navy Cross, given to the
HAG airmen who flew at Midway. One
cannot help but wonder, for example, why one pilot in a given squadron did get
the Navy Cross but another in the same squadron got a lesser award for similar
action. That becomes an even more
intriguing question when you note that the group commander, Stanhope Ring, got
the Navy Cross himself.
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28 June 2008
Rich Leonard
Virginia
These are some, certainly not all—just the ones I’ve been able to glean from
various sources of the non-Navy Cross, non-Purple Heart awards for members of
the Hornet squadrons:
LCDR Robert R Johnson, VB-8, DFC
LT James E Vose Jr, VB-8, DFC
LTJG Frank E Christofferson, VB-8, DFC
LTJG
James A Riner, VB-8, DFC
ENS Gus G Bebas, VB-8, DFC
Donald L Canfield, ARM1c, VB-8, DFC
Elmer Edwin Jackson, ARM1c, VB-8, DFC
Clarence C Kiley, ARM1c, VB-8, DFC
Clyde S Montensen, ARM1c, VB-8, DFC
Arthur M Parker, ARM2c, VB-8, DFC
Wilbur L Woods, ARM2c, VB-8, DFC
George E Ferguson, ARM3c, VB-8, DFC
Thomas Walsh, ARM3c, VB-8, DFC
William H Berthold, ARM3c, VB-8, AM
John B Broughton Jr, ARM2c, VB-8, AM
Joseph G McCoy, ARM3c, VB-8, AM
Alfred W Ringressy, RM3c, VB-8, AM
LeRoy Quillin, ARM3c, VB-8, AM
LT Lawrence C French, VF-8, DFC
LT Warren W Ford, VF-8, DFC
LTJG George Formanek, VF-8, DFC
LTJG Carlton Benedict Starkes, VF-8,
DFC
LTJG
John F Sutherland, VF-8, DFC
ENS
Harry A Carey, VF-8, DFC
ENS
David B Freeman, VF-8, DFC
LT Ray Davis, VS-8, DFC
LT Edgar E Stebbins, VS-8, DFC
LT Laurens A Whitney, VS-8, DFC
LTJG
Donald Kirkpatrick Jr, VS-8, DFC
ENS Augustus Devoe Jr, VS-8, DFC
ENS Don T Griswold, VS-8, DFC
ENS Philip J Rusk, VS-8, DFC
ENS Benjamin Tappan, VS-8, DFC
ENS Paul E Tepas, VS-8, DFC
Richard C McEwen, ARM1c, VS-8, DFC
George D Stokley, ARM1c, VS-8, DFC
David T Manus, ARM3c, VS-8, DFC
John S Urban, ARM3c, VS-8, DFC
John L Clanton, ACRM, VS-8, AM
Ralph Philips, ACRM, VS-8, AM
Kenneth C Bunch, ARM1c, VS-8, AM
Horace F Dobbs, CRM, VT-8, DFC
Ross E Bibb Jr, ARM2c, VT-8, DFC
Ronald J Fisher, ARM2c, VT-8, DFC
Bernard P Phelps, ARM2c, VT-8, DFC
Max A Callkins, ARM3c, VT-8, DFC
Harry Hacket Ferrier, RM3c, VT-8 (det),
DFC
James D Manning, AMM3c, VT-8 (det), DFC
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=============== NOW HEAR THIS! ===============
News & info in this issue:
- Photo of the Week
- Sender Verification
- Forum Notes
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PHOTO OF THE WEEK
Last week’s feature, showing F2A pilot Bill Brooks’ encounter with a Zero over
Eastern Island, prompted me to find this photo of Brooks and other BOM vets in
recent times. This is a Midway vet
group photo at the dedication of the restored SBD at Midway (Chicago) Airport
in 2004. Included among the vets in the
photo are Roundtable members Walt Grist (Midway Marine and SBD mechanic), Dusty
Kleiss (VS-6 pilot), Clay Fisher (VB-8 pilot), and Jim Forbes (VS-8 pilot):
http://www.midway42.org/temp/midwayairport-sep04.jpg
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SENDER
VERIFICATION
I don’t
especially want to belabor the various problems I have in sending the e-mail
edition of the Roundtable Forum to 400 subscribers around the world, but
the realities of today’s e-mail security systems are making the task
increasingly difficult. It’s rare that
I don’t get from 5 to 15 rejects each week, almost every one having to do with
some type of spam blocking in an ISP, server, or personal computer. For that problem I can only repeat my
previous advice that, if you ever stop receiving the Forum for no
apparent reason, check our web site to verify that a new issue has been
published, then go to our FAQs page for guidance on getting back on e-mail distribution. The usual fix is to check your service’s
spam folder for an incoming message from midway.rt@gmail.com. You can permanently solve the problem by
marking the message as “not spam.” That
works in gmail, for example. In other
systems you may need to mark our ID as an authorized sender in your e-mail
account.
The latest e-mail obstacle is the “Sender Verification” feature
that some ISPs provide to ensure that the only e-mail you receive is something
you actually want. Sender Verification
requires anyone sending mail to you to first go through a manual registration
process with your ISP before any message will be passed to you. The process may or may not require your
personal involvement.
Unfortunately, the scope of this task doesn’t allow time for me to
deal with special manual procedures that are unique to one member’s e-mail
service. When a new member signs on, he
(or she) needs to supply an address that will receive messages from the
Roundtable without the necessity of special operations to make it work.
This is an especially
disappointing problem in the case of someone who sends me a new member
request. My first attempt to
communicate with him is blocked by his ISP’s Sender Verification demand, and he
never gets his New Member Guide nor anything else from the Roundtable if his
application doesn’t include a secondary e-mail address (many do not).
Of course, if you’re reading this in an
e-mail message instead of the version posted on our web site, you don’t have
the problem. But you may if you ever
change your address or if you opt for Sender Verification on your existing
service.
Bottom line: any non-receipt of the Forum in your in-box should send
you to our web site to check for a new issue.
If a new one has been posted and you didn’t get it by e-mail, then I had
some sort of problem with your e-mail address and you need to contact me in
order to work it out. But be aware that
if you’ve never supplied an alternate means for me to respond to you, you may
never hear from me despite my best intentions.
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FORUM NOTES
~ Kate Doolan reports that the
Australian Broadcast Company has produced a 103-minute DVD on “The Hunt for
HMAS Sydney,” the renowned cruiser sunk with all hands just prior to the Pearl
Harbor attack. Anyone interested in
obtaining a copy can contact Kate for info at katemonster01@gmail.com. Additionally, the recent discovery of the
wreckage is featured in an article in the current (August) issue of Naval History magazine. For more on this
subject, see:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23391270-5000117,00.html.
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Get the Roundtable's Book: “NO
RIGHT TO WIN: A Continuing Dialogue With Veterans Of The Battle Of Midway”
Now available with a companion CD—click for full information: http://www.russbook.com/
If you cannot access the above web site, send a
message to the editor for full details on No Right to Win or the CD. (Roundtable members can just click
"reply" on this message.)
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For a glossary of abbreviations, acronyms, and terms used in The Roundtable
Forum, go to our home page and click the "Roundtable Glossary"
link, or here is the direct URL:
http://www.midway42.org/glossary.htm
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