The attack lasted five or six minutes, and during that time they came down one after another starting from the port bow and working around to the starboard quarter. Everybody opened up with five-inch and with automatic weapons. One of our forward 20mm gunners opened up on him when he was at 10,000 feet, and this was the signal for the formation. About 1712 the first Jap dive bomber commenced its attack. We were absolutely unable to see the planes due to the fact that they were so high and small, and that it was late in the afternoon and the sky was considerably bluer than it would have been earlier. The action was described by the Big E’s gunnery officer, Lieutenant Commander Elias B. The USS Enterprise at the Battle of the Eastern SolomonsĮnterprise came under heavy air attack during the Eastern Solomons battle of August 24, 1942.
“Yorky’s” Max Leslie and his wingman ditched safely, while the rest of his squadron recovered aboard The Big E. However, the USS Enterprise lost eighteen of her thirty-two scout bombers, including two out of action aboard Yorktown. One managed to wound McClusky, but he escaped.
Several SBDs were chased by vengeful Zeros. In a dive bomber’s dream of perfection, the clean blue Dauntlesses-with their perforated dive flaps open at the trailing edges of their wings and their bing bombs tucked close and pointing home, the pilots straining forward, rudder-feet and stick-hands light and delicate, getting it just right as the yellow decks came up, left hands that would reach down and forward to release now resting on the cockpit edge, gunners lying on their backs behind the cocked twin barrels searching for the fighters that did not come-carved a moment out of eternity for man to remember forever. Stafford, described the ephemeral moment: McClusky raised his binoculars and saw the Japanese striking force.Įnterprise’s biographer, Commander Edward P. Taking his heading from the “tin can,” he proceeded on course until a pale break appeared on the horizon. He found a Japanese destroyer headed northeast and reckoned it was joining the carriers. Still finding nothing after twenty more minutes, McClusky finally got a break. He reasoned that his prey could not have advanced past the briefed contact point, so he turned northwesterly, paralleling Nagumo’s expected track. When his formation arrived at the expected interception point, he found only sea and sky, and continued on a few minutes more. A fighter pilot, he was new to dive bombers, but he was persistent in hunting Nagumo. McClusky had graduated from Annapolis on June 4, 1926, and possessed considerable experience as a fleet aviator. The TBDs and F4Fs proceeded independently, while the Wildcats mistakenly tagged onto Hornet’s Devastators. Finally, he was ordered to “proceed on mission assigned” and led his two squadrons southwesterly, expecting to find Nagumo 155 nautical miles southwest, heading toward Midway. Wade McClusky orbited with his Dauntlesses, burning fuel. But the launch dragged on while Lieutenant Commander C. Wade McClusky, who found the Japanese carriers by following a hunch.Įnterprise put up a strong team: thirty-two SBDs, fourteen TBDs, and ten Wildcats. This is because the most important tactical decision of the Battle of Midway was made by Enterprise’s air group commander, C. In particular the Battle of Midway in 1942. The Enterprise was involved in the most important naval battles of the Pacific Theatre in World War Two. In the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941, USS Enterprise had been spared a pier-side death, delaying its return from a ferry run to Wake Island upon receiving news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Most notable were the twenty thousand-ton sisters Yorktown(CV-5) and the USS Enterprise (CV-6) in 19, which would prove crucial to America’s war effort in the months after Pearl Harbor. Fleet, including the fifteen thousand-ton Ranger (CV-4) in 1934, America’s first flattop built as such but limited in size by the Washington Naval Treaty. USS Enterprise (CVN-65): The Linchpin of the Pacificįrom the 1930s to the early 1940s, five carriers joined the U.S.