At Home and in Combat, Foss Led by Example

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 8, 2001 | by James P. Lucier

Insight: But what about you?

JF: Oh, I got out of there and I went up to the line where all these young pilots were and they had been watching this melee -- because it had happened right over the field -- and they were patting me on the back, [saying] "congratulations!" and "good going!" and that sort of thing. If there is ever a feeling that boosts you, it's when you come out of a situation like I had and have all these kids -- and they were kids -- patting you on the back and congratulating you.

Right then I made the decision that I was really going to lead those boys; and from that moment on I was a leader instead of someone sitting on the fence. It's been that way ever since. You can't lead sitting down, being totally at ease, you've got to get into the melee and go. And I did.

Insight: What about those who never came out of it as you did?

JF: If you return from something like that your survival represents a girl from those who didn't make it. When I think of all those kids that lost their lives back there in 1941-43, and on to the end of the war, I remember that those of us who got all the way through represent them. I speak for them, I feel that. If you were a soldier, a pilot or wherever you fitted in the military, you probably think that, too.

Insight: Still, you had remarkable spunk even for a fighting man.

JF: When I went in I was an old goat at 27, and I really had to fight to get to be a fighter pilot and a squadron commander. They did everything in the book to persuade me to be something else. Their thought was that an older person would have more brains than to go into the situations that we did.

Insight: Situations such as ...?

JF: For example, in the battle of Savo Island, Gen. [Roy] Geiger asked to take my flight of eight Wildcats over the enemy fleet at 12,000 feet to draw fire so the torpedo planes could come in and do their job. We were going out to get the Hiei, a Japanese battleship. While everyone aboard was blasting away at us, we were to peel off one at a time and fly 100 percent down the stack of the Hiei, pulling off just before we hit it.

I almost hit the ship, barely missed the superstructure, then almost hit the water alongside. I kept yelling at my boys, "Keep it straight! Keep it straight! Keep it straight!" because we all had seen the rows and rows of pom-pom guns that were on the deck of that ship. Those guns were all a-melting, they were all a-going and I could not imagine how that many could be shooting at me and not hitting me, other than the fact that I was going straight down and they were shooting under my belly. The eight of us flew through that, and then George Dooley and his TBFs [torpedo planes] did exactly what they were supposed to do. While everyone was firing at us, Dooley and his TBFs came around Savo Island and one of the first put a torpedo into the rudder of the ship -- jammed it full over so the Hiei could only go in a circle.

Well, when a battleship can only go in a circle, you know that's the end of that. They can't even tow the thing.