I jabbed my bomb release button and felt the bomb leave the bomb bay. I snapped the stick back. The windshield fogged over. I momentarily blacked out, and I felt the kick from my bomb blast; I had pulled out of the dive very low. Closing my bomb bay doors I called to Tommy: ‘My God, did you see that? Mr. Vaughn went straight in. He didn’t even try to pull out!’

‘No, sir, I didn’t see it,’ he replied.

Something made me aware of the sound of my engine. Looking at the gauges, I could see that the propeller rpms were dropping–1,900, then 1,800, now 1,700. Something was wrong. ‘Tommy, did we take a hit somewhere?’ I asked. ‘We’re losing rpms.’

‘No, I don’t see anything, and I didn’t feel us take a hit,’ came the response.

Suddenly I thought to check the propeller circuit breakers. One had popped out, probably from the excessive G forces I had pulled during the dive. I punched it back in and saw the rpms climb back to 2,100.

Banking around and looking back, I could see what appeared to be multiple columns of smoke rising from the battleship-carrier. Our attack had hit her square on. Meanwhile, all around us, planes were streaking for the rendezvous position. Distress calls began coming in over the strike frequency.

The rendezvous point was in the general area to the east of Yashiro Jima, and there I found the remnants of our flight. I pulled up alongside the skipper and saw that his plane had a huge hole in the port wing and one in the fuselage. He was leaking hydraulic fluid, and his radio was gone. Fortunately, neither he nor Black had been seriously wounded. Tommy and Black started communicating with the blinker, and control was transferred to Lieutenant Johnson, the second division leader, who still had radio communication with the task force. Two other planes joined up, showing no battle damage. The rest of the squadron’s planes were not accounted for.

The flight back to the picket ships was a slow, torturous affair because the main elements were not able to go any faster than the slowest plane. When planes could no longer fly or when they ran out of fuel, they were simply ditched.

Those of us who were still airborne checked in with the picket ships and got our vector to the task force. Looking at my watch, I noted that I had been in the air for a little over four hours. When we arrived at the task force, I looked for Ticonderoga but could not locate her. In the meantime, the skipper and the other damaged planes made emergency landings on any of the ships that had ready decks.

To the southeast, I noticed another group of ships in a rain squall and went racing in that direction. After a 15-minute search, I found Task Force 38.3 and Ticonderoga. Getting into the landing pattern, I got a ‘Charlie’ (approval to land) just in time to see Lt. j.g. Wheeler catch a barrier, tear it up and chew up the plane in front of him, which had just landed. I circled twice more but got a wave off each time because of the ship’s fouled deck.

It was now raining hard, and visibility was poor. Planes were zooming around, crisscrossing the landing flight pattern in their frantic search for any ship with a ready deck.

With a growing sense of frustration, I picked up my mike and called Ticonderoga: ‘Ginger Base. This is 3-307 Ginger. Queen 10, Queen 10,’ indicating that I had only about 10 gallons of fuel left.

‘I will relay your message. Stand by Ginger 3-307,’ came the reassuring, calm voice from the ship.

I made another pass at the deck, but the barrier was still torn up, so I banked off to try to find another carrier with a ready deck that would take me aboard. I called Randolph for permission to land but was advised that the landing signal officer was not at the ramp and was not available.

Other ships had ready decks but would still not take me aboard. It was pouring rain now, and over the air came the terse message: ‘This is Ginger Base calling all Ginger planes. Circle above the ship. We are changing course, trying to get out of this rain.’

‘Well, that does it,’ I told Tommy over the intercom. ‘We don’t have enough gas to circle, and I’m not going down into that mess again. I’d rather take my chances on a water landing than take a chance on a midair collision.’ I radioed to Ticonderoga: ‘Ginger Base. This is 3-307 Ginger. I’m ditching.’

‘Roger, Ginger 3-307. You are ditching. I will relay your message,’ came the reply.

With my fuel gauges now reading zero, I picked out a destroyer in the outer screen and told Tommy, ‘Get out your Aldis lamp and send the destroyer an SOS, then get ready for ditching.’

I dipped my starboard wing so Tommy could get a clear message to the bridge of the destroyer and then called back to him, ‘This is it, get ready for landing.’

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