The Battle For Hell's Island: How a Small Band of Carrier Dive-Bombers Helped Save Guadalcanal - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stephen L. Moore, a sixth-generation Texan, graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he studied advertising, marketing, and journalism. He is the author of multiple books on World War II and Texas history, including Pacific Payback: The Carrier Fly Boys Who Avenged Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway and Taming Texas, a biography of his great-great-great grandfather William T. Sadler, who was one of the first Texas Ranger captains in the 1830s. 

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PREFACE

“If you’re going to miss with your bomb, you might as well stay home and let a good pilot take your place.”

The sharp words still sizzled in Lieutenant Birney Strong’s mind as he looked at the perfect scene playing out before him. Fourteen thousand feet below on the blue Pacific surface were the distinctive flat lines of two Japanese aircraft carriers. Birney had a determined calm about him as he briefly eyed the thin white wakes streaming behind the gleaming yellow-hued hardwood flight decks far below his dive-bomber.

I couldn’t ask for a better setup, he thought. A dive-bomber pilot’s dream.

He had not felt as happy the night before as he sat in the carrier Enterprise’s wardroom. The ship’s air officer, Commander John Crommelin, had lectured his aviators about what he expected from them the following day. Birney puffed on his cigarette and gulped black coffee as the commander barked, “The Japs are determined to drive us out of the south Pacific. If they get through to Guadalcanal with their carriers tomorrow, the Japs will take it. If Guadalcanal falls, our lifeline to Australia will be menaced.”

Crommelin emphasized that his aviators were to concentrate on knocking out the enemy’s carriers. The comment about letting a good pilot take your place if necessary had particular harshness for Birney Strong that was not felt by the more junior aviators. Just two months before, he had sighted and reported a Japanese carrier force off the Solomon Islands. Instead of attacking, he had led his wingman home, a decision he had regretted for weeks. Crommelin had of course chastised Strong for his decision not to attack. Since that day, most of Strong’s squadron had been granted leave back to the States, but not Birney. He had been ordered right back out to the Pacific war zone to continue the fight for Guadalcanal. Now the third senior pilot of a new scout-bombing carrier squadron, he had one goal: to prove his valor to Commander Crommelin by blasting the next Japanese carrier he faced.

In his own mind, however, Birney had nothing to prove to himself. He had been involved in almost every major Pacific offensive since the start of World War II ten months ago. The handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed pilot had a swagger of confidence that he had earned. In February, he was one of the first pilots to attack Japanese shipping in the Gilbert Islands. In March, he had attacked Japanese shipping in the New Guinea harbors of Lae and Salamaua. In early May, he made three more attacks against Japanese ships in Tulagi Harbor in the Solomons. Strong dive-bombed the Japanese carrier Shoho three days later during the Coral Sea carrier battle and then used his SBD Dauntless dive-bomber like a fighter to battle Japanese Zero fighters attacking his own task force.

Lieutenant Strong was a top-notch pilot who had racked up eight hundred flight hours since graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1937. His awards already included a Navy Cross, an honor second only to a Medal of Honor. He was good at what he did, and was not afraid to let others know of his confidence. He knew that some considered him to be arrogant. But the cocky scout pilot from Washington, DC, needed more than his impressive record to restore the goodwill of his air officer. Strong’s failure to attack the Japanese carrier in August off the Eastern Solomons was a personal mission to correct.

Now, on the morning of October 26, 1942, was his fresh chance. High above the Pacific, Birney Strong was leading one of the eight teams of SBDs on the early scout-strike mission. He was fired up and ready to make his bomb count. “I think you’ll find the yellowbellies are in your sector,” Birney told his squadron skipper before takeoff. “When you find them, call out loud.”

His skipper had indeed located the enemy and Strong moved in quickly with his wingman, Ensign Chuck Irvine. They soon spotted the Japanese carriers Shokaku and Zuiho emerging from under a layer of clouds far below their dive-bombers. “Uncle John” Crommelin’s speech the previous evening left little doubt in Birney’s mind. His mission was to turn back the Japanese carriers that threatened thousands of U.S. Marines on Guadalcanal and the course of America’s first Pacific offensive. Uncle John had made it clear that the aviators should “knock the sons of bitches off the face of the earth.”

Lieutenant Birney Strong of VS-5.

Birney glanced over to Irvine’s nearby SBD. He planned to dive on the nearest flattop, so he patted the top of his leather flight helmet. I’ve got it, Birney signaled to Ensign Irvine. Follow me.

Birney activated his dive flaps; Irvine instinctively slid his Dauntless away to allow the proper spacing interval. The pair nosed over two and three-quarter miles above their prey to begin the thirty-second plunge to the release point.

The teakwood deck of Zuiho grew closer by the second. The big red circle painted forward on the Japanese aircraft carrier’s flight deck looked like the bull’s-eye on a dartboard. Birney Strong had no intention of drawing the scorn of Commander Crommelin again. He would nail this bastard with his bomb or die trying.

ONE

“It’s All Exciting as Hell”

Damn my luck.

Warm salt spray hit Robert John Henry Weinzapfel’s face as he watched another dive-bomber hurtle forward down the teak-covered flight deck. It was not uncommon for off-duty sailors to gather topside in “Vulture’s Row” on the island superstructure to watch aircraft departing from and landing on their massive carrier. The seaborne airfield was only 90 feet wide but stretched 880 feet, nearly three football fields long. One by one, the blue-gray-colored warplanes roared skyward.

The smell of tropical flora was in the air and the Hawaiian Islands were breaking the horizon in the distance. The seas were rough. “The ship was rolling something awful, and a few of the boys furnished us with some thrills in taking off,” Weinzapfel wrote that night.1

He watched as some of his squadron’s junior pilots—Ensigns Tony Quigley, Marvin Haschke, Richard Neely, Jack Leppla, and Roy Hale—launched. Even Harry Wood, the newest pilot who had joined a month after Robert, was now en route to liberty on Oahu.

The date was October 18, 1941, and Ensign Weinzapfel looked on with envy as the planes soared away. After eighteen months in flight training, he was now grounded. He massaged the injured ear that had taken him off active flight duty and cursed his own poor luck.

His fellow pilots had lifted off from the deck of the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier Lexington (CV-2). She and her sister Saratoga (CV-3) were the largest warships afloat, each nearly nine hundred feet in length and in service since 1927. Named for American Revolution battles, Lexington and Saratoga had been laid down on the hulls of battle cruisers, and each behemoth would displace fifty thousand tons when fully loaded. Many of their sailors had affectionately nicknamed the sibling flattops “Lady Lex” and “Sister Sara.” Each could operate ninety aircraft and sported only two aircraft elevators, as opposed to three on the newer carriers being built. By 1941, however, both carriers were effectively restricted to a single elevator, as neither used the smaller elevators at all during daylight operations.

As of late 1941, each Navy fleet carrier operated two dive-bomber squadrons. The carriers Ranger (CV-4) and Wasp (CV-7) were on duty in the...