Pilot Down!
2 SEPTEMBER 1944
PILOT DOWN!
By September of 1944 the Allied advance across the Pacific reached the Bonin Islands, an 1800-mile-long chain that includes Iwo Jima. At 0715 this morning, a squadron of Grumman TBF Avengers took off from USS SAN JACINTO (CVL-30) to strike a Japanese radio installation on another of these islands, Chichi Jima. During the 71-mile flight to the target the Avengers were picked-up by the enemy’s radar, and the anti-aircraft batteries were ready when they arrived.
One of the pilots steadied his aircraft on its bombing run until he felt the sudden lurch of a flack burst slamming his fuselage. Flames began licking the cockpit and neither the tail-gunner nor the navigator responded. The pilot regained control for the moment and finished his run, but by the time he pulled up, his plane was engulfed in aflame. Bailing out was the only option, but not before he nursed the Avenger past the island’s beachline. His parachute landed four miles from shore near a life raft dropped from another plane in his squadron. Now seeing a Japanese boat depart the beach in his direction, he furiously paddled out to sea while his airborne buddies strafed in his defense. This may well have saved his life, as it was later learned that the Japanese island commander believed his troops gained strength by eating the flesh of their enemies. Several American POWs had already been cannibalized!
For three hours he bobbed in the raft, watching the beach. Then the waters parted as USS FINBACK (SS-230) broke the surface–a “lifeguarding” submarine for just this purpose. Three weeks later he took well-deserved leave, during which he married his high school sweetheart, Barbara Pierce. For todays and other brave actions in the war he was awarded the Navy’s Distinguished Flying Cross. The whole event may have passed without much fanfare as commonplace in 1944. Indeed, who could have anticipated that LTJG George Herbert Walker Bush would one day become President.
Bush enlisted in the Navy on his 18th birthday, 12 June 1942, with the goal of becoming a pilot. A year later, 9 June 1943, he was commissioned an Ensign and entered pilot training at NAS Ft. Lauderdale. He was assigned to VT-51 in Norfolk and was shortly deployed with Task Force 58 in the Pacific. He flew his first combat mission over Wake Island on 23 May 1944. He logged over 1200 flight hours, 58 combat missions, and 118 carrier “traps.” He twice survived being shot down, the first coming in his TBF Avenger nicknamed “The Barbara” during the Battle of the Philippine Sea on 19 June 1944. He, and his son, George W. Bush, were our last Presidents with prior military service.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 8 SEP 23
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 405.
Hyams, Joe. Flight of the Avenger: George Bush at War. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 14 Victory in the Pacific. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1960, p. 10.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Though American voters have traditionally favored presidential candidates with prior military service, four of our last five Presidents have reached the Oval Office as non-veterans. On 9 December 2002 Secretary of the Navy Gordon England announced that our tenth Nimitz-class nuclear carrier, CVN-77, would be named USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH in honor of the elder Bush.
