Page 94 - Family History
P. 94
Family Stories
carrying on a softening up operation in preparation for the future amphibious
attack. On that day, we had the air/sea rescue duty for our task group and
were standing by ready to be catapulted on ten minute’s notice.
About ten o’clock word was received that one of our fighters had been shot down
about two miles east of the capital city of Naha. So Backie and I were launched.
Backie had Matlock, one of our radiomen as his passenger and they were to
protect me, guide me and stand by to navigate and communicate.
At 1130 we rounded the southern tip of Okinawa with four F4U’s as escort
fighters. The sky was full of our planes but the only Jap planes we saw were
on the airfield less than ¼ of a mile away, at the Naha airdrome.
Backie and I with the help of our fighters started to search the area. After
about 40 minutes we located the dye marker (green dye a man in the water
releases to mark his position) but it had almost completely dissipated and no
survivor was seen anywhere in the area. In searching, Backie, with great
courage, searched along the shoreline, easily within range of the great number of
A/A [anti-aircraft] guns. In fact, he flew over an enemy destroyer that later
shot down one of our attacking fighters. We never flew over 500 feet or faster
than 90 knots. But we flew erratically which prevents enemy gunners from
tracking a plane long enough to fire at it effectively. Backie did some great
flying – I was proud of him.
One of our dangers was our own fighters. Our escort broke up several runs on
us by friendly fighters who evidently didn’t believe that slow, vulnerable float
94