Even bombers got into the act. Ensign William H. Harris, an SB2C-1 pilot of VB-17, was returning from an anti-submarine patrol at 2 p.m. when he encountered some incoming D3A2s and engaged them, shooting down one plane and damaging another. ‘Bucky’ Harris was subsequently awarded the Air Medal for his actions and went on to fly Corsairs in 1945, bringing his score up to five and acedom.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in World War II magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Shearer was coming back to Essex when he found Japanese aircraft firing down on his TBF, while the ship’s guns fired at him as well as at the Japanese planes. ‘I was trying to form up,’ he said, ‘when our AA took off a piece of my right wing. From then on I was just concentrating on keeping the plane flying, when some Jap joker makes a head-on run at me and fills my engine full of slugs. There was nothing to do but make a water landing–power off, too.

‘We got the raft out all right and sat there watching the fleet steam away fast,’ he continued. ‘Once in a while some Jap would make a strafing run on us. Sitting there, pitching up and down, you could see columns of smoke all over the place where crashed Japs were burning. You’d see one of those `Kates’–he’d be coming in to drop his fish with about six fighters trailing behind him. One would shoot and peel off to the left and another would shoot and peel off right and finally somebody would blow him up.

‘My gunner and radioman were getting worried after the fleet passed out of sight. But I knew they’d be back because they’d seen us. So I said, `If they’re not coming back in half an hour we’ll start some tall navigating for Australia.’ But sure enough, in less than half an hour a can [destroyer] came back with a ladder over the side amidships. I started up the side when an AA gunner in a battle helmet looked over the rail. The helmet fell off and conked me–`Possible concussion,’ the doctor said.’

Destroyer Kidd had left formation to pick up the TBF crew and was attacked by two B5Ns, but her guns shot down both of them.

Aboard the carriers, observers counted 11 Japanese planes burning on the horizon. The dive-bombing attack was followed by two waves of torpedo planes, then more dive bombers. Geysers splashed all around the ships from near misses. One burning D3A tried to make a suicide dive into Essex, but a few seconds before reaching the carrier it exploded. The wing came down so close under Essex’s stern that men on deck could not see it hit the water.

The action lasted 46 minutes, but for some of the Americans it seemed like 46 years. One old gunner’s mate was heard to remark, ‘Ships fightin’ ships is right and so’s planes fightin’ planes, but ships fightin’ planes just ain’t natural.’ Less-experienced sailors acted quite nonchalant afterward, but the Guadalcanal veterans shuddered at what might have been and marveled at the casualties–only 10 sailors injured, none mortally.

Back at Rabaul, Kusaka got another optimistic report from his returning airmen–one cruiser blown up, two carriers and three other ships damaged. The Japanese also claimed 71 American planes that day, including several by Warrant Officer Saburo Saito, a shotai (section) leader from the Zuikaku air group, who was credited with eight victories in six days and who would finish the war with a total of 19.

Such glowing reports left the veteran Kusaka far from convinced that the enemy threat had been eliminated. He ordered Maya, Chokai and three destroyers to leave for Truk and dispatched a squadron of G4M2s to ‘crush the enemy.’ They failed to find the carriers, though 11 of them found and attacked Task Force 39–light cruisers Montpelier, Cleveland and Columbia and seven destroyers under Rear Adm. A. Stanton Merrill–but scored no hits.

After the bombers returned, Kusaka grimly reviewed his losses for the day. Six Zeros had been destroyed defending Rabaul. The attack on Task Group 50.3 had cost him all 14 of his B5N2s, 17 D3A2s, several G4M2s and two more Zeros. Innumerable other aircraft limped home with battle damage. The five fighter pilots killed included Zuikaku’s division officer, Lieutenant Shigeru Araki, and Zuiho’s air group commander, Lieutenant Masao Sato.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to