Dick Crommelin, in his fighter plane with four Japanese flags painted on the fuselage. The 1941 Annapolis graduate had served two years on “tin cans,” as sailors called destroyers, before undergoing flight training, then became an assistant flight instructor, and only now was facing combat. Twice awarded the Navy Cross and credited with 3.5 aerial kills, he had precisely the credentials to lead a fighter squadron. Crommelin, 28, had flown with VF-42 off the first Yorktown.ĭuring the May 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea, Crommelin, then a lieutenant (junior grade) jockeying a Wildcat, had helped destroy a Japanese flying boat and downed two Mitsubishi Zeros before being splashed himself.Īt Midway that June, Crommelin helped defend the doomed Yorktown. The Alabaman was one of five Annapolis-schooled brothers who served in the Pacific, four as aviators. VF-88, Air Group 88’s Hellcat fighter component, had formed at Atlantic City, New Jersey, less than a year ago and had joined Yorktown only two weeks earlier. Of the 14 air groups in Task Force 38, eight - including Air Group 88 - were making their first combat deployment and were dense with nuggets. A nugget was likeliest to survive and thrive if he stuck with and learned from his flight leader. Through the war, the navy’s aviation training command had delivered rookies - “nuggets,” in aviator parlance - to staff squadrons. Casualties were high, due largely to the high percentage of inexperienced American 'nugget' airmen: sixty planes were lost in combat, and another 28 forced to ditch or otherwise lost. The Navy's first carrier strikes against the capital came on Feb. Navy aircraft carrier receive last minute instructions before taking off to attack industrial, and military installations in Tokyo.

The last wood fighter