Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [139]
111 “He wasn’t real bright”: Rear Admiral James D. Ramage, USN (Ret), to author, 1990.
112 Task Force 58: Location of U.S. Naval Aircraft, 20 February 1945, distributed by U.S. Navy, copy in author’s collection.
112 “We were invited”: Barrett Tillman and Jan Jacobs, “The Wolf Gang: A History of Carrier Air Group 84,” The Hook, August 1990, 81.
113 “During the period 9 March 1945”: Commander, Air Group 6, report in War History of USS Hancock, 12 October 1945, http://www.usshancock association.org/wwii%20history-3.html.
113 “The relationship”: E-mail to author from Bob Kettenheim, USS Shangri-La Association, 2008.
114 “The maps”: Commander Willis E. Hardy, USN (Ret), e-mail to author, January 2008.
114 “but plans were aborted”: USS Yorktown pilot Robert S. Rice correspondence, December 6, 1976.
115 “dark and icky”: Jim Pearce, A 20th Century Guy (Goodyear, AZ: Steiner Associates, 2007), 152.
115 “The attack of the 16th”: Masatake Okumiya and Jiro Horikoshi with Martin Caidin, Zero: The Story of Japan’s Air War in the Pacific (New York: Bantam, 1991), 330.
116 “pedestrian”: Rear Admiral Roger Hedrick (Ret), commanding officer of VF-84, to author, 1990.
117 “a genius in the air”: Henry Sakaida, Winged Samurai: Saburo Sakai and the Zero Fighter Pilots (Mesa, AZ: Champlin Museum Press, 1985), 122.
117 “a friendly and cheerful ace”: Ikuhiko Hata and Yasuho Izawa, Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in World War II (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1989), 250.
117 “the toughest fighter pilot”: Sakaida, Winged Samurai, 122.
117 His wife, Kiyoko: Ibid., 123.
118 “The apron was packed”: Robert S. Rice correspondence to author, December 6, 1976.
118 “The old lesson”: Clark G. Reynolds, The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 333.
118 “We, being high cover”: Commander Willis E. Hardy, USN (Ret), e-mail to author, January 2008.
119 But it appears: Henry Sakaida e-mail to author, April 2008.
120 “We appeared to be floating”: Donald A. Pattie, To Cock a Cannon: A Pilot’s View of World War II (Zephyrhills, FL: Pattie Properties, 1983), 111.
120 “Looming out of the carpet”: Ibid.
121 “It was not”: Ibid., 112.
121 “We bore down”: Ibid., 113.
122 “On straight-deck carriers”: Captain Wally Schirra (Ret) to author, 1995. Schirra flew off carriers from 1947 to 1958 before becoming an astronaut.
123 In all, during two days: Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. 14: Victory in the Pacific, 25. February aircraft acceptances: Barrett Tillman, Corsair: The F4U in WW II and Korea (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1979), 203.
123 Actual Japanese aerial losses: Okumiya and Horikoshi, Zero, 330. Respective air combat claims: Hata and Izawa, Japanese Naval Aces, 432.
125 some 800 men were killed: Franklin’s death toll usually is given as 724, apparently due to incomplete accounting by Captain Leslie Gehres. Franklin historian Joseph Springer cites 798 from 3,348 aboard.
127 “the cream”: VMF-123 action report, 19 March 1945.
129 “I was armed”: Tillman and Jacobs, “The Wolf Gang,” 81.
131 Two days’ claims: Hata and Izawa, Japanese Naval Aces, 432. Polmar, 474, cites 482 air and ground claims combined.
133 “You began to realize”: Captain Armistead B. Smith III to author, c. 1979.
CHAPTER FIVE: FIRESTORM
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134 A small AAF support unit: Kenneth P. Werrell, Blankets of Fire: U.S. Bombers over Japan During World War II (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 149.
135 “Whenever I land”: Samuel Eliot Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. 14: Victory in the Pacific (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960), 75.
135 “We must seek”: Wilbur H. Morrison, Point of No Return: An Epic Saga of Disaster and Triumph (New York: Playboy, 1979), 190.
136 “For almost a week”: Ralph H. Nutter, With the Possum and the Eagle: The Memoir of a Navigator’s War (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2005), 243.
137 “a helluva lot worse”: Morrison, Point of No Return, 191.
138 Probably the most innovative concept: