Archie Donahue: WWII Ace Pilot
By Jon Guttman

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Major Archie Donahue’s reputation preceded him when he began training a new generation of U.S. Marine pilots to operate the Vought F4U-1D Corsair from aircraft carriers in 1944. At the ripe old age of 26, he was one of the early birds who had fought the Japanese in the Solomon Islands, enough in itself for the newer squadron members to regard “the Old Man,” as they called him, with reverence. Moreover, Donahue was one of only seven Marines credited with downing five enemy planes in one day—a distinction that may have been marred by one being listed as a “probable,” but which he would make up for later with a second quintuple victory. Regardless, it was Donahue’s reputation as a battle-seasoned flight leader that impressed his squadron mates the most. “The guys liked to fly with him,” said Philip S. Wilmot, “because they knew Archie always came home.” “Before each mission Archie used to put coins in a Buddha on his desk,” recalled Charles H. Hodson. “He said it covered all the luck we’d need.”

Donahue was lucky indeed. After three years at the University of Texas studying engineering, he left to join the U.S. Navy’s Naval Aviation Cadet program, but his flying career almost crashed before it got off the ground. “I badly wanted to be a fighter pilot,” he explained. “When I took the Snyder Test to see if my blood pressure was acceptable, my pulse would go way up. They would say, ‘You are not fighter pilot material.’ But I was persistent. I kept trying for nine months to a year, and it finally worked out. I think the doctor didn’t count all the beats. Funny thing is, after downing my first enemy plane, I took my own pulse and it was normal!”

Donahue joined the Navy in March 1941 and did his initial training with that organization. “The upper 10 percent of the class could join the Marines at Corpus Christi,” he said. “Being an educated Joe, I went for that. I did enjoy my carrier pilot days—good food, clean quarters—but I thought the Marines were fighters.”

Donahue graduated from the cadet program as an ensign on December 4, 1941. “I got my wings three days before Pearl Harbor,” he recalled. “It made things easier to go where you wanted to go.” Transferring to the Marines, he was assigned to fighter squadron VMF-112 at North Island, Calif., which was equipped with Brewster F2A-1 Buffalos and then Grumman F4F-4 Wildcats.

On one occasion, while Donahue was training some pilots in aerial gunnery at El Toro, a plane came out of its dive and collided with his Wildcat, cutting off the tail five feet behind him. Ground observers reported that Donahue was dead, because they had not seen his parachute open. Once again, though, his luck held. He had actually bailed out, but his plane was spiraling down just above him. “I was afraid the chute would get caught by the plane,” Donahue explained. “So I waited until the last minute and opened the chute just about 150 feet above the ground. The plane passed me by, hit the ground, exploded, and blew me back up in the air before I finally descended. Amazingly, I wasn’t even injured.”

On November 2, 1942, the squadron arrived at its first combat assignment: Guadalcanal in the Solomons. There, the Marines and their offshore U.S. Navy support were still fighting to hold the island and its airstrip, Henderson Field, code-named “Cactus” by the Allies.

Second Lieutenant Donahue’s first victory came during three days and nights of naval and aerial combat that brought the struggle for the island to its climax. On November 13, Henderson-based U.S. Navy and Marine aircraft, joined by planes from the carrier Enterprise, attacked and sank the Japanese battleship Hiei, which had been crippled in a wild naval action the night before. For the Wildcat pilots, that involved protecting their bombers from Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighters operating from Japanese bases in the upper Solomons. In the course of those encounters, Donahue shot down a Zero off Guadalcanal, killing Chief Petty Officer Tasuke Mukai from the carrier Zuiho’s air group.

Tags: Aerial Combat, Air Sea, Aviation History, Historical Figures, World War II

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