Book Excerpt:

Ens. Albert Earnest had been flying for an hour in his new TBF from Midway. He was at 4,500 feet when his eye caught what looked like a transport. As he positioned himself in his cockpit for a closer look, the whole Japanese Fleet appeared before him. The six TBFs of Torpedo 8 Detachment and four other torpedo-carrying B-26s were the first aircraft to find the Japanese Fleet. Earnest could see two carriers and set his sights for them. The sight of the massive armada made him stare in disbelief and he opened the bomb bay. He did it automatically because he knew that if the hydraulics were damaged by a fighter, he wouldn't be able to open the bay and that meant he could not get rid of the torpedo. A second later his gunner shouted that they were under attack. The first fighter bore in on him and fired its 7mm guns, knocking out Earnest's hydraulic system. He thanked God that he'd opened the bomb bay. 

But the loss of the hydraulic system created an unexpected problem. The loss of pressure dropped the tail wheel from its retracted position, which masked the tunnel gunner and prevented him from firing. The turret gunner continued the fight against the swarming Zeros for a few seconds until he suddenly slumped over, riddled by Japanese fire. 

The six aircraft of Torpedo 8 Detachment were in two three-plane sections and, as they flew on, Earnest estimated at least twenty-five fighters were swarming on them. 

"They were getting in each other's way trying to shoot at us," he remembered. 

A moment later his tunnel gunner was also hit, and Earnest took the plane down to 200 feet and pushed the throttle full open in an attempt to avoid the Zeros, but the enemy was all over him firing 7mm and then 20mm cannon fire. He looked to his right to see the 20mm hitting on the wings; then one round came through the Plexiglas and hit him in the cheek. The blood poured down his face and the inside of the TBF looked like a butcher shop. The two gunners were down in the back and Earnest's face was covered with blood. 

The young ensign flew on. "I was too young and dumb to do anything else," he said. 

But the Japanese were relentless. Again and again they poured in and on the next pass they cut his elevator wires. He could not keep his nose in the air, and the plane dipped gently forward and started down. Earnest knew now that he was going to hit the water. There was no way he could make an attack on one of the carriers, so he looked around and saw a destroyer off to the port and kicked the plane to the left with his rudders and ailerons. Out went the torpedo. He never saw it hit the water and never knew where it went. The TBF was on a 'gentle glide to hit the water just as if it were going to land. 

Earnest then went through the mechanics of landing. He rolled his elevator control tabs, just as he always did, and was shocked to see the nose come up and the aircraft jump into the air. He'd forgotten about the tabs when his wires had been cut. Now he was flying again. 

But the two Japanese fighters that had been attacking him like lions on a zebra were not happy at his good fortune and were determined to make his plane go down. They chased him for what seemed like three hours but was actually more like three minutes. Earnest did everything he knew to evade them He flew the plane like he'd never flown before, but it seemed hopeless. At every turn, the fighters were on him. 

After a final series of frantic escaping maneuvers, Ens. Earnest was suddenly aware that there was silence. No more bullets ripping through the plane and no more zooming fighters rushing past him. He was alone. He checked in every direction. No fighters -- just him and his beat-up airplane, which had come within inches of the ocean, only to rise again. He estimated that it had been four minutes since he had first spotted the fleet.

Earnest tried to get his bearings and found that the chase had taken him to the northwest, and now the Japanese Fleet was between him and where he thought Midway was. His compass was shot out, so he used the sun to navigate. He was definitely not going across the Japanese Fleet again. Once had been enough. So he flew south, and when he thought he'd gone far enough, he flew east to a spot where he thought he'd gone far enough, he'd try to sneak in. 

Suddenly there was a voice in his ear. His tunnel gunner was not dead, and he now climbed into the rear seat. He'd been knocked out by a Japanese 7mm that grazed his skull. 

On they flew, seeing nothing. Earnest decided to fly above the clouds, which were broken at 4,000 feet. From that altitude he saw smoke and came down to see what was causing it. It was then that he spotted a small island that he knew was a short distance west of Midway. A few minutes later he saw the smoke was from Midway and flew in on the smoke from the burning fuel tanks on Sand Island. 

As he approached the island, Earnest put his wheels down. Only one would lower, but after his recent excitement, he considered that a minor problem. As he approached the runway with his one wheel down, the ground control people waved him off. He came around a second time and got another wave-off. 

The ground crew was frantically transmitting to Earnest to not land, but to take his plane up to altitude and bail out. They had seen the crippled aircraft and did not want it blocking the runway. But Ens. Earnest's radio had been shot out and he heard nothing. 

"I had one wounded man, and I was wounded, and I had a dead man," Earnest said. "I took two wave-offs, and the third time, I said the hell with it, and came on in." 

On one wheel, he landed the riddled aircraft and came to a great sliding halt. He got out and jumped to the ground and waited for the rest of his squadron to return. They never did.

Copyright © 2001 Ronald J. Drez

Available from Amazon.com -- Twenty-Five Yards of War : The Extraordinary Courage of Ordinary Men in World War II by Ronald J. Drez. From the sinking decks of a navy cruiser to the cockpit of a doomed B-25 bomber, this remarkable book takes us to the front lines of World War II. We learn what the war was like through the eyes of ordinary soldiers at the Battle of the Bulge and Iwo Jima, Tarawa and the Philippine Sea, and many other famous locales.

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