Our squadron flew in six wedge-shaped sections, inverted V's, three planes in a section, two sections in a division. We were in step-down formation, both as to sections and divisions; and the second and third divisions were kept closed up just as tight as we could manage. The skipper, Gallaher, was leading the first division. As executive officer I had the second and Charley Ware, as flight officer, was leading the third. Our eighteen gunners, as they sat in their cockpits, facing o the rear, were spaced as men would be sitting on a flight of steps. Any enemy fighters making runs down on us from the rear would thus confront the muzzles of thirty-six .30-calibre machine guns . . .
About a quarter past twelve Lieutenant Commander McCluskey at the front and top of the formation picked up the enemy some forty or forty-five miles ahead and to the left. We headed for them as fast as we could go. What McCluskey had distinguished first, almost halfway to the far horizon, on that dense ocean blue were thin, white lines; mere threads, chalk-white. He knew those must be the wakes of the Japanese ships . . . Because I was less high, it was not until about five minutes after McCluskey saw them that I could see them, too . . .
This was the Japanese striking force. I could see a huge fleet, so many ships that I knew it was their main body. I wanted to keep looking at it but I was obliged to make sure we kept close formation on the skipper's division ahead of me, watch out for my own pilots and also keep an eye out for enemy planes. The enemy combat patrol should have been up at the altitude where we were flying, around 20,000 feet. I expected them and kept looking around . . . We make a slight change to the left to get on a course that would bring us ahead of the enemy. Consequently, within a few minutes, off to my right I had an intoxicating view of the whole Japanese fleet. This was the culmination of our hopes and dreams. Among those ships, I could see two long, narrow, yellow triangles, the flight deck of carriers. Apparently they leave the decks either the natural wood color or possibly they paint them a light yellow. But that yellow stood out on the dar blue sea like nothing you've ever seen. Then farther off I saw a third carrier. I had expected to see only two and when I saw the third my heart went lower. The southwest corner of the fleet's position was obscured by a storm area. Suddenly another long yellow rectangle came sliding out of that obscurity. A fourth carrier!
I could not understand why we had come this far without having fighters swarming over and around us like hornets. But we hadn't seen a single fighter in the air and not a shot had been fired at us.
Every ship in that fleet bore a distinguishing mark . . . each battleship, cruiser and destroyer advertised itself as Japanese with this marking painted on the forward turret. The turret top appeared as a square of white with a round, blood-red center. But on the deck of each carrier, bow or stern, the marking was exactly like that which appears on their planes . . . On the nearest carrier I could see that this symbol probably would measure sixty feet across; a five-foot band of white, enclosing a fifty-foot disk of red. An enticing target!
There were planes massed on the deck of each carrier and I could clearly see that the flight decks were undamaged, in perfect condition to launch.
"DeLuca, stand by for anything, There ought to be fighters coming."
"I've got everything under control back here, Mr. Dickinson." The calmness with which he spoke pleased me.
"Okay, DeLuca. We'll be going down in a few seconds."
The fleet was passing under us now; we were almost at the middle of its position. Some of the craft below us were recognizable because on our own ships we had collections of scale models of many Japanese ships; our own kind of voodoo. I had studied them thoroughly. Sometimes, to get a dive bomber's view I had placed a model on the deck and then, standing on a chair, looked down on it. So I was confident I could recognize at least some Japanese ships of war that I had never before had seen. Certain characteristics of her silhouette made me feel sure that the most distant, that fourth carrier I had first seen coming out of the storm area, was the Hiryu and I guessed one of the nearer ones to be her sister ship, the Soryu. Now we were at altitude between 15,000 and 16,000 feet. The next thng I heard through my headphones was the voice of McCluskey.
"Earl Gallaher, you take the carrier on the left and Best, you take the carrier on the right. Earl, you follow me down."
Lieutenant Best, assigned to the other target was the skipper of Bombing Six. I had been unaware of it but Bombing Three, from a third carrier in our force, had been launched after we left. They had arrived at the same time and fortunately their commander has picked the one uncovered carrier in the group of three below us. I continued to be amazed by our luck. We had dreamed of catching Jap carriers but none of us had ever imagined a situation like this where we could prepare for our dive without a trace of fighter opposition; we had supposed the Jap fighters would be coming at us from all angles. I did not understand why they were not, because those bright yellow decks below were absolutely unblemished. Then I saw some of their fighters milling about, close to the water . . . they were finishing a job . . . our torpedo squadrons, one from each of the American carriers, had made an attack at noon . . .
I saw McCluskey's plane and those of his two wing men, nose up and we passed under.
Right after the skipper and his division had started I kicked my rudders back and forth to cause a ducklike twitching in my tail. This was the signal for my division to attack. In my turn I pulled up my nose and in a stalled position opened my flaps. We always do this, throw the plane up and to the side on which we are going to dive, put out the flaps as brakes and then peel-off. I was the ninth man of our squadron to dive.
By the grace of God, as I put my nose down I picked up our carrier target below in front of me. I was making the best dive I had ever made. The people who came back said it was the best dive they had ever made. We were coming from all directions on the port side of the carrier, beautifully spaced. Going down I was watching over the nose of my plane to see the first bombs land on that yellow deck. At last her fighters were taking off and that was when I felt sure I recognized her as the Kaga; and she was enormous. The Kaga and the Akagi were the big names in the Japanese fleet. Very likely one, or more, of their newer carriers was better, but to use these two symbolized that which we had trained ourselves to destroy.
The carrier was racing along at thirty knots, right into the wind. She made no attempt to change course. I was coming at her a little bit astern, on the left-hand side. By the time I was at 12,000 feet I could see all the planes ahead of me in the dive. We were close together but no one plane was coming down in back of another as may easily happen.
The target was utterly satisfying. The squadron's dive was perfect. This was the absolute. After this, I felt, anything would be just anti-climax.
I saw the bombs from the group commander's section drop. They struck the water on either side of the carrier. The explosions probably grabbed at her like an ice man's tongs. Earl Gallaher was the next man to drop. I learned later that his big bomb struck the after part of the flight deck, among the parked planes and made a tremendous explosion which fed on gasoline. I had picked as my point of aim the big red disk with it's band of white up on the bow. Near the dropping point I began to watch through my sight . . .
As I was almost at the dropping point I saw a bomb hit just behind where I was aiming, that white circle with it's blood red center . . . I saw the deck rippling, and curling back in all directions exposing a great section of the hanger below. That bomb has a fuse set to make it explode about four feet below the deck. I knew the last plane had taken off or landed on that carrier for a long time to come. I was coming a little abaft the beam on the port side on a course that would take me diagonally across her deck to a point ahead of her island.
I dropped a few seconds after the previous bomb explosion. After the drop you must wait a fraction of a second before pulling out of the dive to make sure you do not "throw" the bomb, spoil your aim as certainly as when you jerk, instead of squeeze, the trigger of a rifle.
I had determined during that dive that since I was dropping on a Japanese carrier I was going to see my bombs hit. After dropping I kicked my rudder to get my tail out of the way and put my plane in a stall. So I was simply standing there to watch it. I saw the 500-pound bomb hit right abreast of the island. The two 100-pound bombs struck in the forward area of the parked planes on that yellow flight deck. Then I began thinking it was time to get myself away from there and try to get back alive.
I realized that I had seen three Zero fighters taking off the Kaga during my dive. As I pulled out over the carrier I saw them again some three of four hundred feet below me and to the right. You do not see Zeros unmoved . . .
So far DeLuca had seen nothing coming from behind or above but any one of those three below was in a position in which, simply by pulling up his nose he could kill me very easily. However, two had passed underneath me, going to the left. When the third passed underneath and went to the left I took a deep breath. The other two had gone after a group of our planes already retiring from the action. The group might well deal with them but I felt quite naked. This third Zero climbed. And how they climb! He went rapidly astern and started a run on us from the rear and above. He started firing when he was 800 yards away, which is much too far. When he was closer, six or seven hundred yards away, DeLuca threw a burst at him. The Jap quit at once and went off to play with something else.
Over on my right a destroyer was shooting at me. He had my range all right but his bursts were popping about a thousand yards ahead of me. He could correct that easily. So each time he would shoot I would pull up, then duck right down to the water.
For some reason I was outguessing him even more easily than I had believed possible at the speed of my plane. Then I looked at the instrument panel. Instead of making between 220 and 250 knots I was crawling. I was only doing about ninety-five! I looked around and discovered with a shock that my landing flaps were down.
Undoubtedly I had grabbed the wrong handle after my dive but at this time I really did some grabbing. Some of our people who were still around told me later on that to them it seemed as if I were demonstrating my DOuglas dive bomber. Landing flaps were opening; diving flaps were opening; my wheels were up and down and my activity was like a three-ring circus. Finally everything was closed and, happily for me, somebody put a couple of small bombs on the destroyer that was shooting at me. But I did not know that right then.
Another fighter had passed to the right of me and had slowly drawn ahead. He was stalking a group of our planes that were crossing my course, and his. When this fighter was only a short distance ahead of my fixed guns, I must admit I caught myself thinking, "If I miss him he'll be alive and awfully mad at me." But he was too good an opportunity to let go. I took a good bead on him and began shooting. I fired ten or twenty rounds from each of the guns, two armor piercing bullets for each visible tracer. The Jap pilot must have been hit because suddenly his plane fell off on the left wing and went down, spun into the water, and disappeared.
DeLuca had seen that plane go by us and had heard my guns firing. He yelled over the radio: "Do you think you got him, Mr. Dickinson? Did you get him?"
"Yes, DeLuca, I think I did."
"That's good, Mr. Dickinson."
"Can you see any more back there? I'll take care of the front. You take care of the rear. For Christ's sake keep a good luck out."
"Sure, Mr. Dickinson. I'm looking out mighty good . . ."
As we went away from the Kaga I could see five big fires in the middle of the Japanese fleet. One was either a battleship or a big cruiser. The destroyer that had been shooting at me was lying still and smoking heavily amidships where her boilers are. But the three biggest fires were the carriers. They were burning fiercely and exploding. I looked back when I was a couple of miles away. In spite of the succession of incidents this was no more than a few minutes after my bombs had landed on the Kaga. She was on fire from end to end and I saw her blow up at the middle. From right abreast the island a ball of solid fire shot straight up. It passed through the fleecy lower clouds which we estimated to be 1200 feet above the water. Some of our flyers who were up higher saw this solid mass of fire as it burst up through the clouds, and they said the fire rose three of four hundred feet still higher. Probably that was gasoline but many of the explosions I was seeing in those three carriers were, I think, from their own bombs parked below on the hangar decks in readiness for planes to be rearmed.
I could not afford to wait another second. My gasoline gauges had suddenly assumed an importance greater than the blazing, ruined carriers. I was dubious about our chances from here on. There was no plane for me to join on the flight back toward our carrier. Those who had been behind me in the dive had passed me during that interval when my flaps were down. I could see some of our planes ahead of me streaking for the carrier but I couldn't afford the gasoline to go wide open trying to catch up with them. When I left the enemy my inboard tanks registered, each one, thirty gallons. If we had to go more than 150 or 175 miles on the return flight sixty gallons ought to be enough, if I was careful. It might not get me aboard but it would get me back . . .
Trying to bring myself home I kept watching my gas gauges. But the right-hand tank, which I was using, suddenly quit. Yet the gauge registered seventeen gallons. Seventeen from thirty–there must have been only thirteen gallons in that tank as we started away from the enemy. I felt as if the devil had just stolen seventeen gallons from me. I switched to the left-hand inboard tank and then immediately began to worry over how much there really was in that one.
--Lieutenant Clarence E. Dickinson
and Boyden Sparkes
From: The United States Navy in World War II
Compiled and Edited by S.E. Smith
Part III: Chapter 9: "The Target was Utterly Satisfying"
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