Inferno

An excerpt from Chapter 7
"Seared Hearts"

GEORGE SIPPEL - S2/c, 4th Gunnery Division
(20mm Gun Battery, Portside Amidships)
I was at my watch station, which was the 20mm battery just forward of the portside elevator. There were planes taking off for the strike and it was very noisy. Suddenly, we were told over the battle phones there were bogies coming in at 2-7-0, which is on the port beam, and the bogie should be visible. All of a sudden, there was this big noise behind us, and we were all encased in smoke.

BOB FRANK - Ltjg, V2 Division
(Flight Deck, Amidships)
I was in V2 Division, but when we got off the coast of Japan the air group commander asked me to stand behind the flight deck officer on the flight deck. The flight deck officer is the guy who told the pilot to rev up his engine, and then gave the pilot the signal to take off. The problem was that sometimes the magnetos, according to the pilot's instruments, would check out. Then the pilot would give the flight deck officer the thumbs up, and then he would give them the signal to take off. But then they would go right into the drink because they never had the horsepower. So the air group commander told me to stand behind the flight deck officer to make sure the engine had the required power for take off. To accomplish this I listened to the sound of the engine. If I believed the engine had the necessary power, I tapped the flight deck officer on the shoulder and he gave them the signal for takeoff. We never lost an airplane on takeoff after that. I was standing behind the flight deck officer in the middle of the flight deck. I was engrossed in listening to the engine of an SB2C that was just taking off . . . when all of a sudden I heard an explosion. I looked up and saw sections of the wooden flight deck flying up in the air. I quickly moved beneath a wing of an airplane so I wouldn't get hit with this stuff falling down. I didn't know what had happened.

GEORGE SIPPEL - S2/c, 4th Gunnery Division
(20mm Gun Battery, Portside Amidships)
I looked out across the deck, and the elevator was at a forty-five degree angle. My first thought was that the elevator had been lowered by accident and a plane had gone down the shaft by mistake. I ran over there and looked down through the shaft, and it was just a raging inferno down below. There was so much heat coming out of the hole that I had to back off. Three of us pulled out a hose, but all we got out of it was steam. Then we tried another hose, but that was steam. Nothing worked. Evidently the water lines were all shattered.

NICK MADY - AMM3/c, V2 Division
(Flight Deck)
My plane, loaded with a Tiny-Tim rocket, was the last plane in the last row on the port side of the flight deck. After the pilot started the engine, I saw red hydraulic fluid leaking out of the engine cowling. I thought, Crap, it's a hydraulic leak. The planes were parked on the aft end of the flight deck with their wings folded, and their engines running. The propellers were almost touching, and I didn't dare try to walk between two planes. So I crawled underneath the bellies of all the planes and finally made it to the starboard catwalk. I ran up to the island and there I found our engineering officer. It was his decision as to ground the plane or not.

BYRON ROBINSON - Ltjg, V2 Division
(Flight Deck)
I was on the flight deck near the island. When aircraft were being launched, I normally hung around so I could be in touch with the air officer. Then one of my plane captains ran up to me and said his fighter had sprung a hydraulic leak. So I followed him back to the aircraft, crawling under all the turning props until we got to the particular aircraft. I asked him where it was, and he pointed at one of the cowl flap actuators. Can you imagine . . . that Vought had designed all the cowl flap actuators with hydraulic actuators when you could easily have used a perfectly good screw jack. And sure enough, one of those cowl flap actuators was leaking.

NICK MADY - AMM3/c, V2 Division
(Flight Deck)
He looked at it and said, "Let it fly. It has a pretty good sized reservoir and it'll make it." I thought, Well, I'm damned glad I'm not the guy flying it. But it was his judgment, and he knew more about it than I did. He gave the pilot a thumbs up, and we moved underneath the planes again and over to the catwalk on the other side. Then I went up forward to the captain's shack between the island and the two 5-inch gun mounts. There we had lockers containing helmets and Mae West jackets and the lines we used to tie down the aircraft. It was a lot warmer in there, too.

BYRON ROBINSON - Ltjg, V2 Division
(Flight Deck)
I was standing right behind the 5-inch gun mounts beside the Number 3 elevator with a guy named Danny Woodard. Woody and I were talking, looking out over the ship, when all of a sudden I heard a big bang. I spun around and saw all this debris flying in the air. I said to Woody, "What in the hell was that?" "I don't know. A plane, I guess." We never saw it. We didn't hear it because of all the other aircraft running.

NICK MADY - AMM3/c, V2 Division
(Flight Deck)
At first I thought, Oh no! A pilot fired his Tiny-Tim rocket! It had to have been something like that. When I stepped out of the shack, there was a lot of smoke coming out from around the flight deck. I thought, Well maybe it wasn't a Tiny-Tim rocket! BYRON ROBINSON ? Ltjg, V2 Division (Flight Deck) There was a lot of smoke, but there wasn't any fire among the aircraft at that point. So we quickly moved to the starboard catwalk and looked around to see what the hell was going on. We still didn't know if it was a bomb or not. I was standing by the exit that led to the gallery underneath the flight deck when a group of men came pouring out the hatch. I helped them as best as I could but they were in bad shape. They were yelling that there was fire down below on the hangar deck.

NICK MADY - AMM3/c, V2 Division
(Flight Deck)
A guy stumbled into my arms, and his eyebrows and hair were gone, and his shirt was still smoldering. I tried to help him but he didn't make it. His lungs were gone.

JOHN VANDERGRIFT - 1stLt, VMF-214
(Ready Room, Gallery Deck, Amidships)
I was in our ready room and standing beside Carroll "C. K." Faught. We called him Cowboy because he was from Laramie, Wyoming. We were in our kakis flight suits, being briefed and taking notes on our clipboards about our upcoming mission. Then suddenly . . . the center deck of the ready room slammed into the overhead. BLAM! Fortunately C. K. and I were standing so close to the bulkhead that the enormous deck heave from the explosion was just outside of where we were standing. I don't know exactly what happened because so much of it is a blur. I knew immediately that my legs and ankles were useless. I also took an awful blow to the head where I assume I hit the overhead. The ready room was ripped and torn . . . flames and smoke and bodies were all over the place. There