Early Days and a Mission to Midway

Wings of Gold, Spring 2004 by Kuehn, John T

Once airborne we were to be in absolute radio silence. I was the copilot in the lead aircraft piloted by LT(Jg) Hibbert. As the lead aircraft, we had LT Richards of VP-44, one of that squadron's senior PBY pilots, with us and he functioned as the mission commander.

VP-51's PBY started its takeoff with the boarding ladder hanging out so the pilot aborted, the crew stowed the ladder and another try followed. Meanwhile, our three Catalinas rendezvoused and started on course flying at 3,000 feet. The VP-51 bird never rejoined us until hours after the attack.

It was a long quiet ride but after midnight we made contact and then we saw the Japanese fleet. (The attack occurred in the very early morning hours of 4 June; radar contact occurred at 0115; and visual was gained at 0120. This information is derived from LT Richards' official report.)

We were down moon so didn't present a silhouette to the Japanese ships. It was real tight, like making a critical putt on the green or the key hit in a baseball game. We just hoped we had not flown all that way without being able to do the job...and then we saw all those ships. It was a very exciting moment. You don't feel much emotion at such a time because you're caught up in doing your job. Still, my breathing was short and my throat a little dry.

I must say we were a bit surprised at how easy it was to find the fleet. We attacked in a very loose formation [Richard's report calls it a "loose cruise" formation], sequentially, to avoid collisions. Our crew selected one of the bigger ships to attack. We descended to a lower altitude and released the MK 13 Mod 1 torpedo from a glide profile. After long seconds there was a tremendous explosion, a brilliant orange ball of fire indicating a direct hit. (We later learned we had struck the Akebono Maru, an oiler.)

We flew over the remainder of the fleet that lay before us because it was nighttime and we didn't want to go through the AA fire already in progress behind us since we also would have been silhouetted against the moon. We then climbed to 3,000 feet to rendezvous with the others.

One PBY probably missed a ship with its torpedo although we heard an explosion and the third Catalina dropped and missed, possibly due to a malfunctioning torpedo. In the end, our aircraft experienced no enemy fire from the ships or from aircraft. Some airplanes were sighted but they were most likely scout planes from one or more of our cruisers.

We could not loiter due to fuel concerns and headed back to Midway. As it turned out we flew solo on the return trip. The confusion of the attack dispersed our three aircraft and each proceeded independently in radio silence.

When we were within radio range of Midway we copied a blind radio broadcast that Midway was under attack. We were to continue to either Lisianski or Laysan island, east of Midway. We selected Lisianki.

Jim Boyden, the navigator, and I started taking sun lines to navigate to Lisianski. The sun was just coming up, not the best time to acquire a sun line. But we found our way and after 13 hours airborne, we landed. We had less than 20 gallons of fuel inourtanks.