On Sunday, December 7, 1941, recently commissioned Ensign John D. Bridgers had just graduated from flight training in Pensacola, Fla. A 1940 graduate of East Carolina Teacher’s College, he had hoped to go on to medical school, but his family was still dealing with the effects of the Depression. “In North Carolina, a beginning teacher received a monthly salary of $96.50,” Bridgers recalled. “From this salary one was expected to house, clothe and feed one’s self as well as suffer pension withholdings and pay taxes. While contemplating that, I learned I could make $105 per month in the Navy as an aviation cadet with board, lodging and clothing furnished. In a year, if successful in flight training, I would be com- missioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve with a $250 per month salary, again with lodging provided and an allowance for food, and with a half month’s bonus for flight pay. Further, after four years, the reserve aviator would receive $1,000 per year bonus—$4,000. To a son of the Depression, these seemed princely arrangements, and the flight bonus would provide a nest egg if I needed more college before medical school.” On hearing the news that interrupted the New York Giants football game he was listening to with his father on December 7, however, Bridgers said, “I knew all my plans had just been put on hold.”
A week later new orders sent Bridgers to bomber squadron VB-3 at Pearl Harbor aboard SS President Hoover. “As we pulled into Pearl Harbor, I recalled having seen a newsreel by the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, maintaining that little substantial damage had been done to the Pacific Fleet by the Pearl Harbor attack. We saw the waters were still oil covered as we passed the still grounded USS Nevada in the channel. In the harbor were more derelicts, including the capsized USS Oklahoma, the sunken USS West Virginia and the remains of the blasted USS Arizona. It was evident there had been grievous hurt inflicted by the enemy. I made a promise to myself as I viewed this destruction that I would repay the investment the Navy had made in me one day by doing something to avenge this.”
VB-3 remained behind when the aircraft carrier Saratoga left for the West Coast after being torpedoed on January 11, 1942. New pilots could complete advanced training. In early April, the squadron went aboard Enterprise. “We sailed northwestward and, in the vicinity of Midway Island, our group was joined by another task group that included the USS Hornet,” Bridgers said. “Her flight deck was fully loaded with Army Air Force B-25 medium bombers. We learned we were going to sail within several hundred miles of Japan. Then the B-25s, under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, would take off from the Hornet, bomb targets in Japan and fly on to China.”
On April 20, 1942, Bridgers qualified as a carrier pilot: “Out in mid-ocean, thousands of miles from anywhere, I became carrier qualified in the SBD. To add to my confidence, it was decreed I would fly the oldest and most expendable airplane in the squadron; they would take everything of value off and ballast it with sandbags. I was to make three approaches. The first two would be waved off, and then, if my third approach was decent, I would be given a cut. With a larger than usual crowd of onlookers, I made one of the best carrier landings I would ever make.”
Upon VB-3’s return to Hawaii, the squadron was ordered aboard Yorktown, which had just returned from the Battle of the Coral Sea. The pilots were awestruck when they saw the damage the ship had sustained. They left with construction workers still aboard. “One repair was a large metal plate covering a hole in our ready room through which a bomb had penetrated to the lower decks during the Coral Sea battle,” he noted.
“My first operational sortie from a carrier at sea, other than my brief qualification flight from the Enterprise, was a four-hour, 150- mile search flight,” Bridgers continued. “As fate would have it this was my only contribution to the Battle of Midway. What I remember the most about that particular mission was the thin parachute cushion I was sitting on caused me inordinate discomfort during that flight, a good part of which we spent circling the ships waiting to come back aboard. I was hurting so much I thought little about my pending second carrier landing. I just wanted to be able to stand up and ease the pain in the seat of my pants.”
On June 4, Bridgers had a ringside seat for the fight to save Yorktown: “The planes from the fourth Japanese carrier [Hiryu] found us before we found their ship, and in short order we were under attack. We pilots had no duties other than sitting in our ready room. Unable to see out, we became more and more tense with nothing to release this. This was by far the toughest experience I had during the war. Our guns began shaking the ship and we figured enemy planes were closing in. We gathered around the plate patching the ready-room deck after one fellow said, ‘Surely lightning won’t strike twice in the same place!’ The response was, ‘But do you think the Japs know that?’ Just as quickly, we dispersed to our empty desks, and in short order the ship was struck by a couple of bombs. The overhead was the underside of the flight deck, so we felt considerable jolts and the lights blinked out, replaced by the dim red glare of battle lamps, and smoke was immediately evident. In a few minutes we were released to move topside and survey the damage. By now, our ship was dead in the water.”
Bridgers was confronted with the cost of war when he saw bodies covered with tarpaulins. Yorktown was able to get underway and bring planes aboard, but then came warning of a second strike. “I observed many had been injured in the first strike because they were standing upright and were either hit by flying debris or knocked against projecting fittings. This must have been noticed by the others, for all of us immediately lay prone on the deck, a precaution well worthwhile. Next, there was a tremendous explosion and I was lifted bodily what felt to be a foot or more off the deck. I now knew what a torpedo hit felt like. Almost immediately it was evident the ship was listing to one side and was once again dead in the water. Word was passed to abandon ship. Large life rafts were thrown over the side and the grim business got underway. I walked across the deck trying to decide when I would go, secretly hoping someone would change their mind about the whole affair. I passed Captain [Elliott] Buckmaster, and he told me to hurry and get off the vessel. Several minutes later, I passed him again and he said: ‘Son, I thought I told you get off this ship. Now get moving!’” Once in the water, Bridgers encountered a wounded sailor, whom he took under tow. After what seemed a long time, the destroyer Hughes picked them up.
The survivors returned to Pearl Harbor, where Bridgers had to deal with some personal problems: “Months earlier, when I shipped out from Norfolk, my main suitcase had been left behind. In it were my orders and pay records. On first reaching Pearl Harbor they refused to open a new record until I had some confirmation of my orders. I wrote Norfolk and a validated copy along with a reconstructed pay record was waiting for me aboard Yorktown when we sailed. Unfortunately, these were lost along with my size 14-AA shoes. When we got back, they again refused to issue my back pay on just my say-so. It was another month before I was reentered on the regular payroll, and it was several years before I got the back pay I had missed.”
A week later, Bridgers was assigned to scouting squadron VS-6, aboard the recently returned Saratoga. “I was now on the traveling squad,” he said, “though still on the bench.” He flew his first combat mission on August 7, 1942, supporting the invasion of Guadalcanal. For the next three months he was intimately involved with that fateful struggle, flying in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, and later from the island itself during the worst days of September and October, following Saratoga’s second torpedoing on August 31.
At the beginning of 1943, Lt. j.g. Bridgers went back aboard Saratoga with VS-6, now redesignated VB-13. He departed Saratoga in June, with orders to commission VB-15 at Norfolk, Va. He and two fellow Saratoga veterans, Lieutenant Niles Siebert and Lt. j.g. Barney Barnitz, formed a core of experience for the new squadron, with Bridgers assigned as engineering officer.
Among the crop of fresh-caught ensigns in VB-15 was Bridgers’ boyhood best friend, Warren Parrish. “I was assigned to lead the second division,” Bridgers said. “Warren had entered and finished flight training while I had been in the Pacific. He claims that I told the skipper that since I had taught him everything he knew, they might as well place him on my wing. Warren and Vincent Zanetti flew my wing. For reasons no longer recalled we labeled ourselves ‘The Silent Second.’”
In early November, the first SB2C-1C Helldivers arrived. Engineering Officer Bridgers was at the forefront of the struggle to tame the “Beast”—he had to confirm that more than 800 modifications had been made to each airplane. “I was to come to know well the mechanical intricacies of the Beast,” he said, “and particularly appreciated the aphorism that the SB2C had three less engines and one more hydraulic fitting than the B-17.”
In December 1943, they went aboard Hornet, and were soon aware they’d landed in the proverbial “hornet’s nest.” The carrier’s captain, Miles Browning, was universally hated as “the most illtempered officer in the Navy.” He insisted the Helldivers use only 400 feet of deck for takeoff, a difficult feat for the underpowered Beast. During the trip to Hawaii, VB-15 lost six crews and eight airplanes in accidents. Air Group 15 was put ashore in Hawaii, excoriated by Browning as being unready for combat.
Just prior to its departure for Hawaii, VB-15 received a new CO, Lt. Cmdr. Jim Mini, a former Annapolis football player with combat experience in VF-6. He was checked out by Bridgers. Learning to land the SB2C without benefit of shore training was difficult; Mini crashed into the barrier on his first two landings. “Jim Mini was the worst pilot in the squadron, and the best officer,” Bridgers said. “We all soon loved him despite the fact he was nearly always a moment away from disaster in the cockpit.”
After a six-week training marathon, AG-15 passed its operational readiness inspection and went aboard the new carrier Essex, departing for the western Pacific on May 3, 1944. During the summer of 1944, the group supported the invasion of the Marianas. Fortunately for VB-15’s SB2C crews, they missed the “Mission Beyond Darkness,” during which more than half the Helldivers involved were lost when they ran out of fuel returning to the fleet.
On August 26, Essex arrived at Eniwetok and VB-15 received new SB2C-3 Helldivers, distinguished by a four-bladed prop and 200 additional horsepower. “Those 200 additional horses mattered,” noted Bridgers. “Our takeoffs were no longer so adventurous.”
Under the command of Admiral William F. Halsey Jr., Task Force 38 commenced its spectacular sweep of the Philippines in September. On the 22nd, after Air Group 15 found a convoy of 42 enemy ships, TF 38’s planes sank 18 and damaged several others. By late September, Halsey reported that Japanese defenses in the southern Philippines had been destroyed. The invasion of Mindanao was canceled, and the invasion of Leyte was moved up to late October.
In mid-October, Halsey struck Okinawa and Formosa, wiping out enemy air forces staging there, though Japanese pilots made wild claims of sinking 11 aircraft carriers, two battleships, three cruisers and one destroyer, while damaging eight additional carriers, two more battleships, four other cruisers and 14 more destroyers in the great “Battle of the Formosa Sea.” The Japanese command believed this, setting up the greatest naval battle in history.
On October 24, 1944, the strongest Japanese surface fleet to ever put to sea was spotted in the Sibuyan Sea, headed toward the San Bernardino Strait and the invasion forces in Leyte Gulf. Newly promoted Lt. Cmdr. Bridgers was now VB-15’s executive officer. “Our squadron launched two divisions,” he said, “the first led by Mini, who was also acting as target coordinator for our air group. We flew west through heavy cumulus clouds in which the overall strike group became separated, though our air group managed to stick together. We flew across the southern tip of Luzon and out over the inland waters. Commander Mini sent a division of fighters to scout to the south. In short order, a message came back, ‘Jesus Christ, the whole Jap fleet’s down here!’ We headed there at 15,000 feet, above scattered clouds. The skipper’s division was slightly ahead and off to starboard when suddenly the enemy announced its presence with a large spread of variously colored bursts of radar-directed AA fire through the clouds, clustered around the lead planes. Commander Mini radioed he was preparing to attack a battleship, and directed me to turn east and concentrate on another battleship, which he promised I would see as soon as I reached the edge of the cloud bank I was over.
“Suddenly, from beneath the clouds steamed a dreadnought of vast proportions, the largest I had ever seen.” Bridgers had just set eyes on the 68,000-ton Musashi, which along with sister ship Yamato was the largest battleship ever constructed. “Multiple streams of tracer fire came up and the battleship’s deck blossomed with muzzle-blasts from larger AA guns, the source of the colored bursts of smoke in the sky, all of which were augmented by similar fire from her screening vessels. We entered a power glide down to 12,000 feet, keeping our target in sight, then I signaled to attack. I pulled up slightly across Warren Parrish. I gradually steepened into my dive and opened my dive flaps. It was every man for himself, and suddenly I had my hands full. I started my dive stern-to-bow on the target, but my Helldiver was twisted around in a violent skid, which I couldn’t control with full rudder pressure and trim-tab adjustment. In this condition, my aircraft was away from its flight path and the trajectory my bomb would follow after its release. I figured if this was how it was to be, then my greatest dropping error would be a deflection laterally. I did my best to skid down across the length of the ship in order that my major dropping fault would be fore and aft. In hundreds of dive-bombing runs I’d made, I’d never experienced this type of wild gyrations. The anti-aircraft fire was coming from all quarters, from ships large and small.
“My dive, rather than being a smooth and even descent, had been a wild, spiraling ride, thanks to the as yet unexplained skid. I released my bomb at 2,500 feet as usual, but with a sense of fruitlessness, knowing my aim was guesswork at best. I broke my dive, closed my dive brakes and in a full power glide headed for low altitude just above the wave tops, which we always thought was the safest place in a hostile environment. To my surprise, the plane once more flew with good trim and easy control. Fleeing the enemy ships, I couldn’t see what happened to our target, but the anti-aircraft puffs in the air and the splashes in the sea off our port and starboard let me know the Japanese were still in business.”
Warren Parrish’s dive was more controlled. In an almost vertical plunge, he dropped his bomb right amidships on Musashi, and at pullout went so low his prop sent up salt spray from the ocean’s surface. Parrish had to climb to get over a Japanese destroyer, all the while taking fire from 37mm and 20mm AA. The other five dive bombers soon found Bridgers. All were relieved to see their aircraft were intact. “None of our other planes were to be seen,” Bridgers said. “As we headed home, the pieces began to fall into place. My gunner, Bob Cribb, revealed what had happened in our dive: He saw my dive brakes had opened on only one side, which accounted for the wild ride in the dive and that the flight returned to normal after my pullout.”
Returning to Essex, Bridgers found himself serving as the acting squadron commander, since Mini had ditched near a destroyer, which picked him up. Within hours Bridgers learned he would lead VB-15 to strike the Japanese carrier force the next morning.
Task Force 38 launched aircraft at 0550 on October 25. “Our group tactics called for the whole unit to form on the dive bombers,” Bridgers noted. “After launch, in the blackness of the early morning, we climbed toward 18,000 feet, with the torpedo bombers forming up behind and below us at 8,000 feet as the fighters divided into four-plane sections and weaved several thousand feet above the formation. Our CAG, Commander [David] McCampbell, was the target coordinator for the entire strike. Just as the sky started to brighten, we were the first group at the form-up position and started to circle, but in short order the other groups fell in behind. It was the largest formation of planes I had ever seen, much less in which I had flown, and the amazing thing was that they were all following me! I asked Cribb if he had any idea how many aircraft were with us and he answered, ‘I lost count when I got to 225.’ There were probably in excess of over 400 planes from all the carriers in the task force. As I rolled out to take the heading toward the Japanese, the entire strike force was following me.”
Over the Japanese force—actually a decoy unit centered around four aircraft carriers with practically no planes left on their decks— Bridgers bombed the light carrier Chitose. “Starting my line-up on the bow as my aiming point, I carried my attack down to 1,500 feet before I released my bombs and was low over the water before I leveled out. I found myself completely surrounded by enemy ships and had not noticed the intense AA fire until then. I weaved between the ships, maintaining whatever distance possible from each. I kicked my plane up on one wing and saw two splashes close aboard the carrier’s port side and smoke coming up through its flight deck.”
Bridgers flew a second strike that day, in which VB-15’s Helldivers delivered killing blows to the carrier Zuikaku, last survivor of the Pearl Harbor attackers. “As I flew home,” he recalled, “I thought to myself that the Navy’s investment in me had been repaid.”
This article is adapted from Thomas McKelvey Cleaver’s new book Fabled Fifteen: The Pacific War Saga of Carrier Air Group 15, published in hardback by Casemate Publishers and as an e-book by Pacifica Press. See also his “Relentless in Battle” in our July 2014 issue.
Originally published in the May 2015 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.