The Hornet's Sting

When the Navy announced the sinking of the Hornet last week no mention was made of what she did to the enemy in her death throes. The story, as seen by one man:

In the pilots' ready room, just before the order to take off that day, Gus said: "This attack is going to separate the men from the boys."

Lieutenant Commander William J. ("Gus") Widhelm, U.S.N., was the skipper of Scouting Eight (dive-bombers) and the bigheart of the Hornet. Gus always kept five dollars in nickels so he could buy everybody cokes in the wardroom after evening general quarters. He could play badminton on the hangar deck better than anyone else. He had better luck at Bingo in the ready room than anyone else. There was always a wisecrack on his tongue, but he was a flyer's flyer. George Stokely, his radio man and gunner, called him "the crazy flying fox."

The order to man planes came. Gus gave his men a last summary of his theories of attack. They ran up to the flight deck and took off.

About 100 miles out they passed a great covey of Jap planes which were heading for the Hornet's task force. Later they found the Jap ships--but to get to them they had to fly 75 miles with Zeros buzzing around their heads.

One Zero attacked Gus Widhelm--Jap aviators are trained to attack the squadron leader. "I pulled my nose up," Widhelm says, "and put my bead just about half a cowling above him and held the fire right there until he flew into it. He burst into flames."

But another attacker got Widhelm's oil cooler. He put his plane in a tight corkscrew which no Zero could follow (Gus used to be a stunter), landed in the water and got into his rubber raft with Stokely.

They were almost smack in the middle of the Jap task force. Lieut. "Benny" Moore, his bald, bowlegged, Texas flight officer, led the others in, and Widhelm had to watch his attack theories from a raft. His main idea: the only way to escape anti-aircraft fire and yet make a hit is to start the dive higher than the books say, end it lower. On top of that, he would make the plane oscillate most of the way down so as not to be a fixed target.

Widhelm saw his men put seven 1,000-pounders into the Jap carrier. The Navy only claimed, the carrier damaged,* but Widhelm says: "If they can save a ship burning like that one was, we ought to get a new kind of bomb."

Japanese destroyers went right by Widhelm and Stokely--close enough for them to see Japanese grins. On the third day Stokely woke Widhelm from a sound sleep to point out a patrol plane circling for a landing, and said: "An angel's come from heaven, let's drink the rest of our water."

When he returned to his squadron Gus Widhelm remembered what he had said about the separation of the men from the boys. The flyers hoisted him to their shoulders and chanted: "Here is the No. 1 Boy."

*Also claimed: another carrier damaged, one cruiser badly damaged, one battleship hit.

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