A Dawn Like Thunder

by Robert J. Mrazek

  The men of Torpedo Squadron Eight were not unique. John Lundstrom once told me that I could have researched any number of naval or Marine air squadrons in early 1942, and found similarly compelling stories. He is probably right. Nevertheless, I feel privileged to have gotten to know these men.

  My principal regret is that after the passage of sixty-five years, the trail to reconstructing the abbreviated lives of many of the men in the squadron had simply gone cold. I apologize to the families of those whose stories do not appear in these pages.

  I wish to express my deep appreciation to the many individuals who assisted me in writing this book. First, I would like to thank the survivors of the squadron whom I was able to meet or interview over the course of my research, including Frank Balsley, Wiley Bartlett, George Bernstein, Del Delchamps, Bert Earnest, Harry Ferrier, Gene Hanson, Ski Kowalewski, Ridgeway Liccioni, Bill Magee, Lee Marona, Smiley Morgan, Jack Stark, Bill Tunstall, and Judge Wendt. It was a privilege to talk to them all.

  I am also grateful for the opportunity to have met so many of the family members, loved ones, and friends of those who never came back from the Pacific. They have kept the memories of the fallen aviators alive in their hearts.

  In particular, I want to thank the sagacious Roy Gee, Rich Morgan, Nancy and Al Willis, Rete Gaynier Janiec, Nancy Mahi, John Peterkin, Russellyn Kenyon Edwards, Thomas E. Evans, Charles Gillispie, Sherry Moore Cullaty, Roger Katz, Richard Katz, Heber Stafford, Lois Fieberling Castor, Marilyn Richards, Jane Eagle, Don Velazquez, Eric Fieberling, Elizabeth Gaynier Wallin, Billy Herring, Gail Gaynier Grimm, Marcella Whitlock, Mary and Catherine Corrigan, Bill Archer, Kelley Gaynier, Dennis Divine, Grover Connell, Helen Lyddon, Ted Scarritt, Jessie Thompson, Gerald Harwood, Lonnie Smith, Patrick Peterkin, Lodwrick Cook, Catherine Dunn, Christopher Morgan, Millie Earnest, and Jack Tobein, for helping to bring the stories of these men to life in my mind. I am also grateful to the family of George Gay, and in particular to his grandson Eric Staalesen, for providing access to Ensign Gay’s private diary. I owe the same debt of gratitude to Pete Peterkin’s family.

  The profound impact of the deaths of the Torpedo Eight fliers on their families and friends cannot be overstated. In an interview with Lodwrick Cook, who idolized his older cousin James Hill Cook when they were growing up together in tiny Grand Cane, Louisiana, Mr. Cook told me that much of what he had accomplished in his own life was an attempt to live up to the expectations that James Hill would have had for him. Lodwrick Cook eventually became the chairman and CEO of the Atlantic Richfield Company, and also serves as a director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, among many other accomplishments.

  Professor Charles Colston Gillispie, who was Bill Evans’s roommate at Wesleyan and went on to become the distinguished professor of the history of science at Princeton, still has a photograph of Evans on his desk more than sixty-five years after his death. Professor Gillispie believed him to be a visionary and said Evans was one of the three most extraordinary men he met in his life.

  As I’ve described in Appendix One, I am indebted to Bowen Weisheit, whose devotion to the memory of Mark Kelly led him to travel all over the country in a quest to delve into the mystery of Mr. Kelly’s death. Due to the unique combination of Mr. Weisheit’s gifts as a navigator, a lawyer, and an independent thinker, he was able to solve the puzzle of the “Flight to Nowhere,” and actually rewrite a small but important piece of American history.

  My sincere appreciation also goes to John Lundstrom, the foremost living authority on the Pacific air war in 1942, whose pursuit of history led him in the early 1970s to undertake hundreds of interviews with the pilots who served aboard the Pacific carriers. A number of these interviews helped to shed light on this story. I was also fortunate to be able to draw on the exhaustive research conducted in recent years by Jon Parshall, Anthony Tully, Richard Frank, Alvin Kernan, James Sawruk, and Mark Horan, for which I am deeply grateful.

  I also want to express my thanks to Harold Towne, the grandson of Lieutenant George M. Campbell, who dedicated many years of his life to learning the truth of Torpedo Eight’s role at the Battle of Midway, and who generously shared with me the product of his research into the decisions made on June 4, 1942.

  In the course of writing this book, I received wise counsel from naval historian and author Paul Stillwell, whose generosity of time and insight provided invaluable leads to important material, as well as smoothing the passage for its retrieval. At the Nimitz Library in Annapolis, the late Gary Lavalley of the special collections division helped me track down copies of academic records and other pertinent information on the “blue school” officers in the squadron.

  At the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C., I am especially thankful to Robert Cressman, head of the ships history branch of the naval warfare division, for helping me locate many important biographical documents, as well as photographs of the men in the squadron. Thanks also to Kathy Lloyd at the operational archives division, who prepared the cataloging of the new Walter Lord collection of his multitudinous notes from Incredible Victory, to Ed Finney of the photographic division, and to Roy Grossnick at the naval aviation history branch. Mr. Clark Peckham, a wonderful restorer of old and washed-out photographs in Homer, New York, was responsible for rejuvenating several of the faded images of the men of Torpedo Eight.

  At the Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola, Florida, I thank Hill Goodspeed, whose assistance was critical in securing flight records for some of the Torpedo Eight pilots. In addition, he shared with me his collection of personal letters written by several Marine pilots serving at Midway on June 4, 1942.

  I am also grateful for the enthusiastic support of Paul Brockman at the Indiana Historical Society, and Douglas Clanin, the remarkable Indiana historian who personally interviewed three hundred WWII veterans over the course of twenty years, and whose accounts are now part of the Douglas Clanin collection at the society.

  For helping me find other important source material, I am grateful to Nathaniel Patch at the National Archives and Records Administration; Bob Aquilina at the Historical Division of Marine Corps University; Colonel Joe Alexander; Mike Musick; Jessica Lacher-Feldman at the University of Alabama; Maria Davis at the Eastern Michigan University Archives; the EMU Athletic Hall of Fame; Timothy Woodbury and Mrs. Nell Horn at the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association; Keith Gibson, Director of the VMI Museum; Donald Goldstein, Gordon Prange’s collaborator on Miracle at Midway, at the University of Pittsburgh; and Ellen Fearday, supervisor of alumni records at the University of Illinois.

  To achieve a better understanding of what it was like for the men of Torpedo Eight to fight alongside the Marines defending Henderson Field during the Japanese ground campaign, I relied on the memories of Edson’s Raiders James “Horse” Smith and Frank Guidone. Their recollections of the battle brought alive for me the fighting at Edson’s Ridge on September 13, 1942, the night Torpedo Eight arrived at Guadalcanal to become part of the Cactus Air Force.

  I wish to express my appreciation to Julie Krick, a superb mapmaker whose work in this book helped to bring alive the complex confrontations at both Midway and Guadalcanal, and to Dan Farnham, whose haunting and evocative photograph of the submerged plane wreck for the chapter, “When the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead,” is only one of many he has taken in the waters off Kwajalein.

  I would also like to thank Professor Lamont Lindstrom, chairman of the anthropology department at the University of Tulsa, for his assistance in helping to illuminate for me the enduring impact of Swede Larsen’s air strike on the island of Malaita on August 7, 1942.

  Another important source of information was the Battle of Midway Roundtable (www.midway42.org), a forum for students of history to learn more about the battle from the men who fought in it. Ron Russell, its current editor and webmaster, remains dedicated to strengthening the understanding of this pivotal conflict. Mr. Russell has written his own book on Midway, No Right to Win, utilizing the personal accounts of the men who we
re there. Fred Branyan and Bill Roy were two members of the roundtable who were helpful in providing me with important bits of information to help complete the complex historical mosaic of Torpedo Eight’s role at Midway.

  I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my wife, Carolyn, who transcribed many hundreds of pages of my interviews and read my initial drafts of each chapter with a fine sense of how to distill a long narrative to its essentials.

  Researching the story of these men was only the first step in a long process. For helping me to shape and structure this book, I am deeply indebted to my editor at Little, Brown, Asya Muchnick. It is remarkable that a woman so young could also be so wise. Her unerringly fine judgment and editorial prowess are felt in every chapter, and A Dawn Like Thunder is immeasurably stronger as a result of her guidance.

  Photograph Captions and Credits

  Page 2 Corwin Morgan after returning to the U.S. from Guadalcanal. (U.S. Navy. Courtesy of Corwin Morgan)

  Page 12 John Waldron aboard the Hornet shortly before the Midway battle, May 1942. (U.S. Navy. Courtesy of Corwin Morgan)

  Page 25 H. H. Larsen’s senior photograph in the yearbook, Lucky Bag, Annapolis. (U.S. Naval Academy)

  Page 32 William R. Evans Jr. aboard the Hornet shortly before the Midway battle, May 1942. (U.S. Navy. Courtesy of Corwin Morgan)

  Page 39 Langdon Fieberling while undergoing flight training before World War II. (U.S. Navy. Courtesy of Bill Vickrey)

  Page 45 George Gay while undergoing flight training before the Pearl Harbor attack. (U.S. Navy. Courtesy of the Gay family)

  Page 52 Bert Earnest in his final year at Virginia Military Academy. (Courtesy of Bert Earnest)

  Page 52 Harry Ferrier after returning from Guadalcanal, 1943. ((U.S. Navy. Courtesy of Harry Ferrier)

  Page 62 Grant Teats and Whitey Moore on leave in Pensacola, Florida, 1941. (Courtesy of Nancy Mahi)

  Page 73 Rete and Ozzie Gaynier, early 1942. (Courtesy of Rete Gaynier Janiec)

  Page 80 Frederick Mears III in pilot training before World War II. (U.S. Navy. Courtesy of Marilyn Richards)

  Page 85 Mechanics prepare carrier planes on the hangar deck before a dawn mission. (National Archives and Records Administration)

  Page 97 Second Division, Torpedo Squadron Eight, shortly before the Midway battle, including the pilots, bombardiers, and radiomen-gunners. (The bombardiers did not fly on June 4.) Pilots, standing in back, left to right, are Grant Teats, “Abbie” Abercrombie, Whitey Moore, Jimmy Owens, Hal Ellison, Jack Gray, and Bill Creamer. All were killed on June 4, 1942. (Photograph found in the personal effects of Grant Teats. Courtesy of Nancy Mahi)

  Page 159 A Mitchell PBJ-1H bomber from squadron VMB-613 at the bottom of the Pacific. (Photographed in 2007 by Dan Farmham. Used with permission)

  Page 187 The official Navy Cross citation endorsed by Admiral Chester Nimitz after Bert Earnest’s epic flight on June 4, 1942. (U.S. Navy Official Document. Courtesy of the Earnest family)

  Page 190 USS Saratoga (CV-3). (U.S. Navy)

  Page 216 U.S. Marines shortly after landing at Guadalcanal on Dog Day, August 1942. (U.S. Marine Corps)

  Page 239 Japanese carrier aircraft attacking Guadalcanal, August 1942. (U.S. Navy)

  Page 273 A group of sailors relax in the waters off Espiritu Santo, 1942. (U.S. Navy)

  Page 291 Colonel Ichiki’s dead warriors, half buried in tidal sand, Guadalcanal, August 1942. (National Archives and Records Administration)

  Page 310 Corwin Morgan on a mission over Guadalcanal, September 1942. (U.S. Navy. Courtesy of Corwin Morgan)

  Page 341 Night explosion, Pacific. (U.S. Navy)

  Page 353 Dauntless dive-bomber after Japanese attack at Guadalcanal. (National Archives and Records Administration)

  Page 381 U.S. Marines contending with daily life at Guadalcanal, August 1942. (U.S. Marine Corps)

  Page 403 Injured man aboard USS Minneapolis (CA-36), 1942. (National Archives and Records Administration)

  Page 418 Bert and Millie Earnest on their honeymoon, 1943. (Courtesy of the Earnest family)

  Page 447 The ten-dollar “short snorter” bill given to PBY pilot Jerry Crawford after his crew picked up three pilots from the Hornet fighter squadron, June 8, 1942. (Presented by Jerry Crawford to the C. Markland Kelly Jr. Foundation. Courtesy of Bowen Weisheit)

  Sources

  The Sentinels

  Smiley

  The principal source for the account of the arrival of Swede Larsen’s Torpedo Eight detachment at Pearl Harbor on May 29, 1942, was Corwin “Smiley” Morgan. The author spent four days with Morgan at his home in Tampa, Florida, during two separate visits in March 2006 and February 2007. Morgan’s further recollections of his service with Torpedo Eight were recorded in more than twenty telephone interviews between February 2006 and February 2007. Morgan also permitted the author to review hundreds of pages of his contemporaneous notes, journal entries, flight logs, newspaper articles, and the letters he wrote and received during his service with the squadron.

  In addition to Morgan’s reflections on John Waldron, James Hill Cook, Victor Lewis, John Taurman, and Langdon Fieberling, the author also relied on the unpublished diary and war memoir, Carrier Squadron Torpedo 8, by DeWitt “Pete” Peterkin, as well as personal interviews with numerous squadron members who arrived with Morgan at Pearl Harbor on May 29, 1942. They included William Tunstall, Albert K. Earnest, Eugene Hanson, and William Magee.

  The Skipper

  The primary sources for this chapter include the unpublished private diary of George Gay; the Torpedo Squadron Eight War Diary (official source); the USS Hornet Deck Log (official source); John Lundstrom’s The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway; Frederick Mears’s Carrier Combat; Walter Lord’s Incredible Victory; Gordon Prange’s Miracle at Midway; Lloyd Wendt’s “The True Story of Heroic Squadron 8”; Clark G. Reynolds’s The Saga of Smokey Stover; Bowen P. Weisheit’s The Last Flight of Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Junior, USNR; and George Gay’s Sole Survivor. The author is indebted to Bowen Weisheit for providing him with the transcripts and notes of interviews he conducted with Samuel G. Mitchell and John G. Foster. The author also found valuable information in the interview notes and completed author questionnaires compiled by Walter Lord after meetings and/or correspondence with Edward Creehan, George Flinn, Robert “Ruff” Johnson, and Stan Ruehlow.

  References to John Waldron’s early life and his experiences at Annapolis were drawn from his academic records at Annapolis, from the 1924 Annapolis yearbook, Lucky Bag, and interviews and questionnaires with classmates of Waldron amassed in 1966 and 1967 by the author Walter Lord for Incredible Victory. The author also utilized material from a six-page handwritten letter describing Waldron’s early life by his daughter, Nancy Waldron LeDew, which is on file in the Waldron collection at the South Dakota Hall of Fame, and from Alvin Kernan’s The Unknown Battle of Midway (pp. 64–71).

  Details of Lieutenant Commander Waldron’s training methods were drawn from author interviews with Torpedo Eight squadron members Ervin Wendt, Bert Earnest, Corwin Morgan, Eugene Hanson, Carroll “Jack” Stark, and William Magee. They are also documented in Gay’s Sole Survivor as well as in Gay’s private diary. The author also relied on personal letters written by squadron members Grant Teats, Rusty Kenyon, “Whitey” Moore, and Oswald Gaynier in which they reflected on the squadron’s training period in Norfolk, Virginia, from the summer of 1941 to its departure for the Pacific in early 1942.

  Lieutenant Commander Waldron’s interactions aboard the Hornet with Edward Creehan, the carrier’s engineer officer, were drawn from Creehan’s correspondence with Walter Lord in 1966, which is on file in the Incredible Victory archive at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C.

  The account of Stanhope Cotton Ring’s Annapolis years as well as his early career in the Navy was drawn from his academic records, from the 1923 Annapolis yearbook, Lucky Bag, from Kernan’s The Unknown Battle of Midway (pp. 72–75), and from portion
s of his military service record (Advisory Board Proceedings, official source).

  Admiral Ring’s capabilities as a pilot and combat leader were seriously questioned prior to the battle by many of the officers who flew under his command. Specific references to Ring’s qualifications as the Hornet air group commander, including his getting lost leading the group in a training flight over the Gulf of Mexico, were drawn from author interviews with Hornet dive-bomber pilot Roy Gee, an interview taped by Bowen Weisheit with pilot John McInerny, a personal reminiscence by fighter pilot Tom Cheek in a June 2002 interview with www.internetmodeler.com, and Kernan’s The Unknown Battle of Midway (pp. 73–74). In a letter to the historian and author John Lundstrom on April 23, 1981, Hornet fighter pilot Henry A. Carey referred to Admiral Ring as “a pompous ass and a coward.” In Ron Russell’s No Right to Win (pp. 128, 130), Hornet dive-bomber pilot Clayton Fisher, who flew as Ring’s wingman during the Midway strike on June 4, 1942, expressed polite misgivings about him, summing up Ring as “a decent officer in general terms, but he did not exhibit the qualities of a skilled pilot and navigator.”

  An author interview with historian James Sawruk was the source of the account in which several Hornet pilots seriously discussed a plan to kill Stanhope Ring. In a written communication to the author on August 17, 2007, Sawruk recounted details of his interview with the group’s “ringleader,” Lieutenant George Ellenberg, a senior Dauntless pilot on the Hornet.

  The reference to a “near mutiny” against Ring by the pilots of the Hornet air group during the same time period appears in the diary of fighter pilot Elisha Stover via Reynolds’s The Saga of Smokey Stover (pp. 28–29), and in a 1981 letter from Hornet pilot Henry A. Carey to John Lundstrom.