The Indestructibies

"Oh, yes, we know the five Crommelin brothers," said an official at the naval hospital in Bethesda, Md. "One or the other of them always seems to be getting shot up." Charles, the third of the Navy's team of officer-brothers, was at the hospital this week. He had come out of his last fight hit in more than 200 places.

On the chests of the Crommelin brothers are decorations, citations and campaign ribbons from every naval theater of this war. On some of the Crommelin hides, enough medical work has been performed to fill a medical volume.

Alabama Born. Long ago, on their plantation near Montgomery (Ala.), Mr. & Mrs. John Crommelin decided that Southern boys need discipline. John Jr., their eldest, was sent off experimentally to the Naval Academy. The experiment worked, so one by one the other boys--Henry, Charles, Richard, Quentin--were launched in John's wake.

Four of the Crommelins became naval aviators. Through the 1943 South Pacific campaign, Captain John, 41, served as air officer on carriers, including the ill-fated Liscome Bay. Commander Henry, 39, whose eyes had kept him out of aviation, commanded a destroyer in the Atlantic, took part in the North African invasion, finally went to the Pacific in command of a destroyer division.

Commander Charles, 34, having somehow survived a plane-shattering crash, spent three months in the hospital, went out to the Pacific as a fighter pilot. Lieut. Richard, 27, a fighter pilot in one of the old Yorktown's famous squadrons, was in the scrap in the Coral Sea. He was shot down but survived to fight at the Battle of Midway. Twice decorated, he is now at Jacksonville (Fla.) teaching new airmen how to fight. Lieut. Quentin, 25, who commanded an antiaircraft battery on the Saratoga, is also at Jacksonville. While Richard and Quentin were having a breather in the States, the three eldest Crommelins fought on in the Pacific.

Battle Bred. In a quiet moment of the noisy Gilberts affair, John decided to take a shower on the Liscome Bay, had just soaped himself when the little carrier was torpedoed. Naked as a new chick, he made his way through the shattered carrier to the flight deck. (The Liscome Bay was afire from stem to stern, sinking in a sea of blazing oil.) John jumped overboard. Badly burned, he was finally plucked out of the ocean by a destroyer.

Henry, aboard his destroyer in the same engagement, stood in to Tarawa's lagoon firing at almost point-blank range on Jap shore batteries. Direct hits on his ship did not discourage Henry, who blazed away with even more enthusiasm.

Hospital Bound. Charles, leading a strafing attack over the nearby Marshalls, ran into ack-ack. Windshield and instrument panel exploded and more than 200 particles of glass and metal were driven into his face and body. Blinded in one eye and drenched with blood, Charles made a perfect landing on his carrier.

Back in Pearl Harbor, Charles persuaded ambulance attendants to stop off in front of the Officers' Club. He walked unaided to the bar, had a drink with pilots of his group. Said the most shot-up of the Crommelins: "I just wanted to show those kids that it's not so tough to be shot up."

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