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They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway:

Going to War with Yorktown's Air Group Five

 

by Stuart D. Ludlum, ex-Lt. (AVS), USNR

 

Military Monograph 308

• Seventh edition (December 2011)

• 264 – 6 × 9 inch pages

• Paperback (ISBN 978-1468092141 ) — #MM308-P — $21.95
  

• PDF (Adobe Acrobat) file sent by mail on DVD disk — $4.99
• PDF file with immediate download after purchase ($4.99) available here.
  

• 65 photos

• 1 map

• 4 illustrations

• Booksellers:
• Paperback edition available direct from Merriam Press at a discount, as well as through distributors.
  

Go to war with the Yorktown's Air Group Five (VF-3, VF-42, VB-5, VT-5).

 

Very detailed self-told experiences of American Naval Aviation pilots who fought and survived the Marshall, Gilbert, Salamaua, Lae, and Tulagi raids, and the Coral Sea and Midway battles in 1942.

 

Sources for this massive work were the pilots themselves, whom the author interviewed after the ship's return to the States during the war, while memories were still fresh.

 

This is an invaluable record of their experiences.

 

Their descriptions of combat will make you feel like you are right there with them in the cockpit.

CONTENTS

• Publisher’s Foreword

• 1: Into the Atlantic

• 2: Low and Slow

• 3: Meet Dave Berry

• 4: Gaining Experience

• 5: Convoy Duty

• 6: Portland Interlude

• 7: Pacific Bound

• 8: Marshall and Gilbert Islands Raid

• 9: Salamaua and Lae

• 10: Patrol and Search

• 11: Tulagi

• 12: Cruise of the Hing Lee

• 13: Coral Sea: 5 and 6 May 1942

• 14: Coral Sea: 7 May 1942

• 15: Coral Sea: 8 May 1942

• 16: He Who Fights and Runs

• 17: Fixin’ for a Fight

• 18: Midway: 3 June 1942

• 19: Midway: 4 June 1942

• 20: Midway: 5 and 6 June 1942

• 21: The Fighting Lady

• Appendices

  • Organization of an Aircraft Carrier

  • Ready Room and Flight Deck Operations

  • Torpedo Planes Prove Their Worth

  • Pilot Rosters

• The Author: Stuart D. Ludlum

Review by Bernice G. Nielsen, wife of John L. Nielsen, then a Lt. and pilot with VB-5 (Bombing Squadron 5) featured in the book: Thank you so very much for sending me the copy of They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway. I've read about half the book and it brought back so many memories, tears and laughter. I'm enclosing a check for another copy. I want both our children to have one. Captain Nielsen died on 5 February 1994 after suffering from Alzheimer's for many years.

Excerpt from the Book:

Publisher’s Foreword

In the latter part of 1990, the author, Stuart Ludlum, first contacted me about this work. After examining the manuscript, I knew it was a remarkable work that needed to be published. During the brief correspondence I had with Stuart prior to his death the following year, he gave me a little background on how this work came about.
    He personally interviewed the surviving American pilots a few weeks after the battles took place. These men had returned to the States after Midway and were awaiting reassignment when he inter-viewed them.
    In those hectic times, it is fortunate that Stuart took the time to preserve the experiences of these men, while the events were still fresh in their minds, and we should be thankful that these individuals took the time to relate them to Stuart.
    In 1990, Stuart was still in contact with only one of the men featured in this work: Johnny Nielsen. Some did not, of course, survive the war; others have passed away over the years. So this makes They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway even more valuable as a record of the experiences of those pilots.
    As I worked on the manuscript, reading about these men’s experiences, especially during the battles, I can honestly say that I have never before read anything that made me so clearly appreciate what they went through. At times, it truly felt like I was right there, in the cockpit with them. It may sound corny to you, dear reader, but at some points I could actually feel the hair on the back of my neck start to creep up... Perhaps, after you have finished reading this book for the first time, you will have had the same experience.
    I have left the quotes of the pilots and others virtually untouched. Some of you may, while reading this, find certain words and expressions out of place or even offensive in this day and age. I felt it was necessary not to change them, because that’s what those men actually said, and that’s the way they spoke during those days. The Japanese were “Japs,” or “Nips,” or “Jappies” (that was a new one on me). A black person was “colored” or a “darky.” When reading and studying history, you have to cast away your prejudices, and immerse yourself in the times you are studying; those attitudes, etc., were a part of those times.
    Stuart attempted to revise some of his own commentary to reflect the facts as information became known over the years. Since this was originally written during the war, security prevented a lot of facts being known and some of the text may still contain errors. I have tried not to revise his words any more than necessary.
    I did find that there was considerable confusion as to the names of the Japanese warships, especially the carriers, in Stuart’s manuscript, and probably at the time even the U.S. Navy didn’t know exactly which enemy warships were involved with any degree of certainty. I have attempted to correct these, utilizing the few good sources I have available to me; I hope I have succeeded, but should you find there are still some errors, please advise so I can correct them in any future revised edition.
    My thanks to Stuart’s wife, Aune, who has been more than patient while waiting for me to finish typesetting Stuart’s manuscript. She agreed to proofread it, and the finished book is the better for it.
    I hope you enjoy They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway. I believe Stuart would have been very proud to see his book finally in print after all these years... and somehow, I think he knows.
—Ray Merriam
 
Marshall and Gilbert Islands Raid

Late in January 1942 Admiral Halsey prepared to strike back at the oncoming Japanese in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands with a task force built around the carriers Yorktown and Enterprise.
    This strike was to be the first aggressive action our navy was to take in this war. And as you discuss it with the pilots who made the attacks, you get the distinct impression, without their saying so, that right from the start Halsey showed his superiority in courage, common sense and fight.
    The force split up early in the evening of 30 January, Halsey taking the Enterprise north while the Yorktown, accompanied by two destroyers, steamed westward, full speed, towards Jaluit, Mille and Makin. The next morning Halsey took the Enterprise in close to the target and held it there while the air group made one attack in clear weather, then returned to reload, refuel, and go out and attack again.
    The Yorktown passed Mille and Makin during the night, and before dawn, in foul weather, launched the group that was to strike Jaluit. It then turned around, launched the Mille and Makin attack groups as it retired, and continued eastward at 25 knots, into a 25 knot wind. That meant the Jaluit attack group had to fly more than a hundred miles in miserable weather before dawn, try to find the target, attack, and then chase the fast-retiring Yorktown against a strong wind. Actually, the first 50 knots of each plane’s speed was canceled out by the speed of the Yorktown added to the velocity of the wind. Unfortunately, some ran out of gasoline and didn’t make it.
    While Halsey’s Enterprise stayed in the ring, a faint heart dictated the Yorktown’s “Let’s-get-the-hell-out-of-here” maneuver, a maneuver that was to become a recurring irritation to Air Group Five.
    As the blacked-out Yorktown plunged westward through the night of 30-31 January, patches of cloud obscured the small moon from time to time. Thunder heads piled up ahead, and showers wet down the armed and fueled planes that were stacked on the flight deck. At three a.m. the pilots were routed out, fed scrambled eggs and coffee along with their last minute weather and navigation data, which they memorized, so that the enemy could not learn the position of the carrier from the chart board of a plane that might be shot down. Crews checked and rechecked engines, guns, and bombs. Shortly after 4:30 the order came: “Pilots man your planes!”
    It was two hours before dawn. The enemy was still 125 miles away, yet orders called for a blacked-out carrier, dimmed lights in the aircraft, and no reference light on the destroyer up ahead. Each pilot had to run down the dark deck and leap into complete blackness, trying to switch to instruments as soon as his plane left the deck, without the customary truck light on the leading destroyer to indicate where air left off and water began.
    On a carrier take-off both the wind and the weight must be figured, accurately, for if the plane is too heavy, or the wind too light, the plane is going into the water and not into the air when it reaches the end of the flight deck. Pilots say the first man off “tests the wind” and the second “tests the weight.” What they mean is simply that those first two take-offs are mighty hazardous when planes are overloaded. And the Yorktown’s planes were overloaded plenty when they started down the deck on the morning of 31 January 1942.
    The honor of “testing the wind” went to Lt. Cmdr. Bob Armstrong of Bombing Five; Johnny Nielsen “tested the weight.” He could see the tiny white deck lights which point aft and drop into the deck when a plane wheel rolls over them. The last two are red and tell the pilot that he is fast running out of deck. Nielsen saw these two red spots appear and disappear under the wing of his SBD. Just as the heavy plane left the end of the carrier, it was airborne. Torpedo Five followed Bombing Five off, putting 30 planes in the dark sky around the Yorktown.
    It was the worst weather the pilots of Air Group Five had ever flown in. It was squally. It was raining. It was windy. They couldn’t see the carrier, and they couldn’t see the other planes, for their lights were dimmed. They just couldn’t see anything.
    For half an hour the pilots tried to rendezvous, but without success. When the fuel mixture is full rich, the engine exhaust gives off a rich, blue flame that can easily be seen. But as the mixture is leaned out, the flame turns red, then yellow, and finally disappears. The dive bombers were carrying 325 gallons of gasoline. Every pilot had leaned-out his mixture to save his fuel for the attack and return, and it was all but impossible to see more than one other plane at a time.
    Finally, when the dive bombers and torpedo planes were in the same part of the sky and headed in the same direction, they started for the target without a rendezvous, but with that 25-knot wind pushing them. The skipper, Pappy Armstrong, flew on instruments... Jo Jo Powers, number two... Johnny Nielsen, number three, flew on him... others followed, and they never saw the horizon until after daylight.
    Near the island they were just about to enter a large black cloud when Nielsen saw the coast line of Jaluit off to the right in heavy surf. He’d been watching for it, because, according to the time, they should be reaching their target. He thought Armstrong had seen it, too, but he learned later that he had not.
    Inside the murky cloud, the turbulence was powerful, and the five-ton planes were buffeted about by the swirling, bouncing winds. Suddenly they were startled by a flash of orange light which seemed to light up the entire inside of the cloud. Having just seen the shore line, Nielsen thought it was a searchlight from Japanese shore batteries trying to pick them up. The flash lasted about three seconds and then went out. All was black again. A few seconds later another orange flash illuminated the cloud, and again the mysterious, eerie light lasted about three seconds.
    Duke Berger, Dave Berry and Sam Adams were nearby. Duke had his hood open, and when the flashes appeared, he could feel heat on his face. They believe that, because they were flying in that cloud without the protection of full running lights, Mike Fishel and George Bellinger, executive officer of Bombing Five, collided in the gloom and that the orange flashes were caused by their exploding gasoline tanks.
    Jeff Bigelow and Bill Christie also had close ones in that cloud. Bigelow went into a spin at 4,500 feet, recovered on instruments and pulled out 300 feet above the water so sharply that the pressure was probably equal to at least eight times the pull of gravity, or eight ‘Gs.’ Bill Christie lost his bearings, got vertigo and couldn’t tell whether he was right side up, upside down, or what. As he was falling he got a glimpse of water through a break in the cloud. He realized he was out of control and was able to recover.
    When it became light enough to see the ground clearly, Armstrong turned back and flew around the island, looking for the target. Only six of the thirty planes were together—Armstrong, Nielsen, and Powers in the first section... Sam Adams, Duke Berger, and Dave Berry in the second section.
    “After take-off,” said George Bottjer of Torpedo Five, “I came up alongside a plane. The pilot put a piece of cloth over the lens of his flashlight to keep it dim, flashed me number ‘seven,’ and I knew it was Dub Johnson. I was trying to get my wheels up, but couldn’t. It was the first hydraulic system failure I’d seen. I could smell the hydraulic fluid; so I knew the system had gone haywire. I asked my second-seat man to try to fix it. But he was an ordnanceman, not a mech; so he didn’t know anything about it. It was too dark, anyway.
    “Just about then someone joined up on me in echelon. That meant he wasn’t a torpedo plane pilot or he would have joined in ‘V.’ I don’t know who he was, probably just somebody who was willing to fly on anybody he could find. It was raining. We were flying on instruments. I was trying to find Joe Taylor, and I was burning too much gas with my wheels down. I kept pumping the hand pump, trying to get them up, but no luck. I had been so busy with the landing gear problem that I hadn’t been able to do any navigation, and just as I was getting leery about running out of gas, Dub flashed me to return to the ship. I had to scuttle my bombs and go back. We were carrying bombs, not torpedoes on that mission. And even though we weren’t supposed to dive bomb with TBDs, some of the boys did.
    “As I turned to go back, I couldn’t see anyone. But as I got turned around, I could see a couple of exhaust plumes. Lucky for me Dub was on course, for I got my orientation on navigation from him, but didn’t have a chance to check him. The wind got worse and worse, hitting a high of 40 knots, and that’s some wind to buck, when you know you’re low on gas and your landing field is going away from you at 25 knots. Then the visibility got worse and worse. We had been following a circuitous route trying to avoid a storm where we could see flashes of lightning. About half way back it began to get light, but visibility dropped to a mile or less.
    “I told my radioman to try the radio homing system, but the whole radio was out cold. I kept going, adding about five knots every time I checked the wind. Finally, I decided to stop and start circling. Then I headed north, for no particular reason except that I lived up north and liked it. Finally the radioman got out of his parachute harness and leaned out to check the aerial. Only one in a million would think of it, but he did, and he found a loose connection. He had to lean way out to fix it but he got it working, and we located the Yorktown directly south of us. It seemed to be just about a mile south of the spot where I had stopped to circle, but because of the low visibility, I hadn’t been able to see it. The ship’s radar had picked me up, and when they saw me going away, they had fighters on deck all warmed up to chase me.
    “We weren’t supposed to dive bomb those TBDs. We could glide with them but not dive them. Tom Ellison found a hole in the clouds, pushed down through it and bombed some radio towers. Eb Parker, Joe Taylor, Al Furer, and Schultheis didn’t find anything to bomb. Dennison found the island, but he was early. He went back into the clouds to wait for his time. When it came, he couldn’t find the island again. They all had to scuttle their bombs and buck the wind back.
    “I was the first back, of course, and as we were coming in I was surprised to hear radio silence broken with, ‘This is Five-Tare-Six and Five-Tare-Seven, landing on the north coast of Jaluit. That is all.’
    “It was Dub Johnson and Herbie Hein, who was married in Portland. I had been Herbie’s best man, and their loss really took the starch out of me. Why they both went down is a mystery that won’t be cleared up till after the war, for both were taken prisoner and have been heard on the radio from Japan.”
    The six SBD dive bombers of Bombing Five circled the island twice before they spotted the target through scattered clouds. It was a big cargo ship, probably 600 feet long. Armstrong peeled off and went down. Johnny Nielsen followed, four seconds later. After the same interval, Jo Jo Powers pushed over.
    “My telescope fogged up in the clouds,” Johnny said, “so I looked over it. Then the inside of the hood frosted, and I couldn’t see. Pappy and I missed to starboard. Jo Jo was watching and figured there was a lot of wind down there; so he allowed for it. But he allowed too much and missed to port. We had orders to strafe an airfield on Enybor Island as we pulled up. It was slightly to starboard as we came out of our dives. I looked out and saw tracers streaking diagonally across in front of me. I remember thinking, ‘He really is leading me!’ Then I realized I was going just about as slow as the SBD would go in that attitude. I hadn’t closed the flaps all the way. If I had, those tracers might have got me. I pressed the button that closed the flaps and headed toward the airfield.
    “I had lost the skipper for there was an 800-foot ceiling and he went up into it. There wasn’t anything on the field to strafe; so Jo Jo and I—he’d joined up on me after his dive—headed for our next target, a seaplane base about 4½  miles up on the next island. We were boiling down full gun about 200 feet off the water when we spotted a radio station. A machine gunner on the top of the antenna mast was shooting at us. We turned sharply. I lined up the machine gunner on the mast, let him have a burst or two, and he stopped shooting. Jo Jo strafed the shack at the foot of the tower, sending his tracer in through the window. He blew it to hell and gone.
    “We strafed two small ships in the lagoon, then circled the lagoon while looking for the seaplane base, and found nothing but a corrugated hut in bad repair. There just wasn’t any seaplane base to be shot up. We banked hard and cut across a spit of land so low I had to dip a wing to keep from hitting a palm tree.
    “We’d lost everybody. Jo Jo closed up, and we headed for the Yorktown at 400 feet, trying to hold a fuel-conserving speed. Thirty miles from the ship we contacted it by radio and flew right in to land without circling.”
    The second section was composed of Sam Adams, Dave Berry, and Duke Berger.
    “We followed the skipper, Johnny and Jo Jo down through the clouds,” said Dave. “We couldn’t see anything, and I didn’t have the slightest idea where I was diving. Sam and Duke dove on a submarine pen. When I came out of the overcast, I dropped at random on some houses. I made a hit on a big old building—I don’t know what it was—a laundry, maybe, for I saw a lot of clothes around.
    “A machine gun on a tanker out in the lagoon started in on us. Clegg, my rear seat man, fired back. There was no more shooting from the tanker. Clegg was good. We didn’t see a soul; so we started back to the Yorktown.
    “Suddenly George Mansfield, Sam’s rear gunner, remembered he was carrying a 30-pound demolition bomb in his lap, and he asked us to detour over a target before returning to base. Mansfield was quite a character. He was our official photographer and sun-watcher, which means he wore special glasses which enabled him to look into the sun to try to spot enemy planes. He could write a very graceful script, and he teamed up with another gunner named MacKillop, who had interesting ideas about letter writing. At a dollar a letter they did a big business on shipboard. Anyway, we weren’t surprised to hear that Mansfield had a bomb in his lap. Sam took him over a warehouse and he tossed it over the side, reporting a miss, and again we headed for the Yorktown.”
    After launching Bombing Five and Torpedo Five for the attack on Jaluit, the Yorktown turned around and headed out. Bill Burch and nine of his Scouting Five pilots took off for an attack on Makin. They effected a fast-running rendezvous in the inky pre-dawn darkness and straightened away to the south at 1,000 feet, heading for their target, 160 miles away. They were out of the storm area, but there was an overcast above them. Just before they arrived over the island, they ran into a long cloud and several thunder showers. As dawn was breaking, Bill found a rift in the cloud, and at 6:50 he sighted the Makin Atoll dead ahead. He doubled back and climbed, slowly circling great masses of cumulus clouds which obscured the island from the north.
    At 12,000 feet the nine-plane division leveled out and completed the turn to the windward of the anchorage immediately inside the lagoon entrance. A seaplane tender of about 5,000 tons and two four-engine bombers were sitting on the water. Bill signaled his pilots to form a line, and at 7:10 he pushed over. With the ship’s three anti-aircraft guns suddenly coming to life, he laid his bomb on the after well deck for a beautiful bulls-eye. The others followed him down, releasing their bombs at 1,500 feet and pulling out of their dives to the east. They scored another direct hit and several near misses as the ship got underway. The two hits wrecked the planes on deck, tore off the mast, blasted the bridge and after decks, and silenced the guns. The tender began to drift and sink. After the pull-out, Bill Burch turned to the left and approached the anchorage from the south over the island, climbing for strafing runs on the two big seaplanes.
    “We started our strafing attack at 4,000 feet,” said Bill, “and opened up with our guns at 3,000 feet. I had picked out the one on the right, held my sight on it, and kept shooting. Tracer streaked down into it, and when I got down to 1,000 feet, it blew up right in the sights. I pulled out, turned and went up ahead to see what was happening to the other one. The ship appeared in front of me; so I strafed it. I looked back and there was only one seaplane, and it was sinking in shallow water. We didn’t want that; so I got on the radio and asked if anyone had any ammunition left. Turner Caldwell said he had; so I told him to strafe it again. His first tracer blew it up in a tremendous explosion... much bigger than the explosion the first made because gasoline had spread over it. We circled back over them and could see the remains lying on the bottom. The seaplane tender was sinking fast as we left.”
    After Bill Burch and his division took off from the Yorktown and headed south towards Makin, Wally Short and five more from Scouting Five headed northeast for an attack on Mille. Flying at 2,000 feet through areas of high and low clouds and occasional rain squalls, they sighted Kno Island at the southeast tip of Mille Atoll. A wide, right climbing turn brought them 12,000 feet over a lagoon in the northwest corner of the atoll. There wasn’t a target in sight; so they spiraled down to 3,000 feet to investigate. One plane went south to Mille Island and, finding nothing to go after except some water tanks, laid a bomb into them. At 9:55 they returned to the ship, disappointed in the lack of targets.
    The Mille group was the last to take off and the first to return. The Makin group came back next, on schedule. The Jaluit group had by far the longest distance to return against that strong wind.
    As soon as each returning pilot saw the ship and started to circle around to get in position to be recognized, the ship flashed a “cast,” the signal to land, so they all flew straight in to the flight deck without getting into the landing circle. Everyone on the Yorktown knew their gasoline was running low, and the pilots were on deck checking off the others as they came in... waiting to see just who would make it... and who wouldn’t.
    Tom Ellison came up the “groove” on his wobble pump. He flew straight in for a landing but had forgotten to lower his hook. The landing signal officer waved him off. Then the men on deck saw a bit of the most spectacular carrier flying they’d ever witnessed. When planes in the landing circle around a carrier “break up” their formation to come in to land... one after the other... there is usually a 25- or 30-second interval between landings. Ellison knew he was almost out of gasoline. His tank had been reading “empty” for minutes. When he was waved off, he dropped his hook, snapped his plane into a steep turn close to the water, and flew a 24-second interval on himself, a feat that any carrier pilot finds hard to believe, but Tom had to do it. When his plane came to rest on the deck, it didn’t have enough gasoline left to taxi out of the arresting gear.
    Al Furer was the last to land. He appeared a half an hour after he should have been out of gasoline by all calculations, but he still had 15 gallons in his tank. He had leaned out his mixture and throttled down to 90 knots, getting every bit of mileage out of his fuel. As soon as he hit the deck he reported two planes out of gas and down on the water 20 miles astern, with pilots and crewmen breaking out their rubber rafts. They must have been Francis X. Maher and Jack Moore of Torpedo Five.
    A destroyer and an observation scout seaplane were sent back to pick them up. Lieutenant Worthington, pilot of the seaplane, located the spot and reported that he was circling. He was never heard from again. On the way back, the destroyer was bombed by a Kawanishi four-engine flying boat, which missed by many yards. But when it arrived at the spot where the pilots were down, the destroyer found only wreckage. It is believed that Worthington either landed on the water or was shot down by the Kawanishi... and that the Japanese had strafed the men on the rubber life rafts.
    Suddenly the Yorktown was alerted. A bogie had been spotted, probably the Kawanishi that bombed the destroyer. Three sections of the combat air patrol were ordered out to look for it in the “soup,” but the weather was so bad they had no luck.
    “Doc” McCuskey and Johnny Adams took off and were just climbing up to lend a hand in the hunt when the Kawanishi came out of a cloud within sight of the carrier. Immediately it ducked back into the cloud. “General Quarters” sent every officer and man on the Yorktown to his battle station.
    “Stand by for air attack!” the bull horn announced. In the ready room the pilots were impatient to get into the fight. They could not go up on deck, and only those in the two ready rooms on the flight deck could see what was happening. McCuskey plunged into the cloud with Adams tight on his wing. They located the Kawanishi in the murk and made a pass at him. Tracer from both planes laced into the Japanese plane. The fighters circled for another attack, came swinging around through the wisps of gray mist, located the big four-engined bandit again, and drilled him from close range. The combined fire power of the two Wildcats tore the wing off the Japanese plane... then the tail... and McCuskey, who had been giving a blow-by-blow report over the radio, colored with picturesque curses, announced with elation, “We shot his goddamn tail off!”
    What was left of the big Japanese bomber plunged into the water within sight of the Yorktown, lifting morale as nothing had in weeks. Over the bull horn the air officer announced, “McCuskey and Adams shot down a four-engine patrol bomber.”
    The announcement was the signal for the air group to come up on the flight deck and take a look at the black plume of smoke that marked the spot.
    McCuskey and Adams continued their patrol, and when the six planes returned aboard, McCuskey and Adams were grinning broadly. They were given a royal welcome. The executive officer, Commander Jock J. Clark, clamped a fez on Adams and pinned a leather medal on McCuskey.
    The Yorktown then returned to Honolulu.
    As she approached the island of Oahu, the air group took off. It was 6 February, and the pilots and gunners saw for the first time the sickening destruction at Pearl Harbor... the 19 warships with their masts reaching out of the water at crazy angles... the upturned bottom of the USS Oklahoma... the barracks where a direct hit had killed 300 men... the mess at Hickam Field... the hangar at Kanehoe Bay that had been blasted into twisted wreckage. As they circled and landed on Ewa Field, they brought with them combat experience, the lift of personal victories, the sobering sense of loss of friends, an indelible view of our most disastrous defeat, and a slight inferiority complex. Apparently the air group on the Enterprise had done more at the Marshalls than the Yorktown group had at the Gilberts. That’s all they knew. And without knowing more, they assumed it had to do with flying and fighting skill alone.
    “Upon landing at Ewa,” Bill Burch said, “we received a pleasantly shocking notice that the old order indeed changeth. As we cut engines, a bus drove up to the planes and we were handed a paper welcoming us and ‘ordering’ us to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for a 48-hour rest. Our planes were to be serviced and repaired for us. This was our introduction to the CASU (Carrier Aircraft Service Unit) for the relief of war-torn aviators. Expecting to be rudely awakened each moment, we were taken to the Royal and checked in our suites. Some of the more unfortunate were forced to take the $12.00 rooms while others rattled around in the $16.00 numbers.
    “Sadly enough, the flies soon began to cloud up in our ointment. Since we last saw Hawaii Nei, liquor had gone, and an eight o’clock curfew was enforced for all hands. So, much against our wills, we rested for the allotted 48 hours and then returned to Ewa to live amid the dust, mosquitoes, and Marines. Except for the large amount of upkeep work necessary, and the morning and evening alerts, time passed rather pleasantly, and we managed to work in a couple of days of much-needed gunnery and dive bombing practice.”
    Most of the Yorktown families had returned to the States and were scattered from San Diego to Norfolk. Of course, Dave Berry wasted no time in getting down to the Eastman Kodak place and, as he puts it, “Jacqueline and I—we talked it over some more.”
    Air Group Five heard the story of Pearl Harbor from the officer who was Officer of the Day at Ewa on the morning of 7 December. For the first time they learned of the maneuverability of the Zero. Brilliantly-painted American planes were lined up in even rows. None was camouflaged, none dispersed. The Zeros peeled off and strafed, wrecking five of our planes on their first pass. They climbed, did wingovers and were able to come back for a second strafing run without crossing the edge of the field—their rate of climb was so fast, the angle so steep, and their maneuverability so great.
    “We felt a little better about our attack after we talked with the pilots from the Enterprise,” said Johnny Nielsen. “Admiral Halsey had taken the Enterprise in close. The weather was good, visibility unlimited. Her planes didn’t have far to fly, and they came back, reloaded and made repeated attacks. We had made a hit-and-run attack in impossible weather, with our carrier retiring—fast.”
    On the morning of 16 February, the Yorktown, accompanied by her escort of two cruisers and four destroyers, headed south. The air group took off from Ewa early in the afternoon and landed aboard as the islands disappeared behind the horizon.