Edward O'Hare

Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry O'Hare (March 13, 1914 – November 26, 1943) was an American naval aviator of the United States Navy, who on February 20, 1942, became the Navy's first fighter ace of the war when he single-handedly attacked a formation of nine heavy bombers approaching his aircraft carrier. Even though he had a limited amount of ammunition, he was credited with shooting down five enemy bombers and became the first naval aviator recipient of the Medal of Honor in World War II.

O'Hare's final action took place on the night of November 26, 1943, while he was leading the U.S. Navy's first-ever nighttime fighter attack launched from an aircraft carrier. During this encounter with a group of Japanese torpedo bombers, O'Hare's Grumman F6F Hellcat was shot down; his aircraft was never found. In 1945, the U.S. Navy destroyer was named in his honor.

On September 19, 1949, the Chicago-area Orchard Depot Airport was renamed O'Hare International Airport, six years after O'Hare perished. An F4F Wildcat, in a livery identical to the aircraft ("White F-15") flown by O'Hare, is currently on display in Terminal 2. The display was formally opened on the seventy-fifth anniversary of his Medal of Honor flight.

Early life

Edward Henry "Butch" O'Hare was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Selma Anna (Lauth) and Edward Joseph O'Hare. He was of Irish and German descent. Butch had two sisters, Patricia and Marilyn. When their parents divorced in 1927, Butch and his sisters stayed with their mother Selma in St. Louis while their father Edward moved to Chicago. Butch's father was a lawyer who worked closely with Al Capone before turning against him and helping convict Capone of tax evasion.

Butch O'Hare graduated from the Western Military Academy in 1932. The following year, he went on to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. After he graduated and was commissioned as an ensign on June 3, 1937, he served two years on the battleship . In 1939, he started flight training at NAS Pensacola in Florida, flying the Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-1 "Yellow Peril" and Stearman NS-1 biplane trainers, and later the advanced SNJ trainer. On the nimble Boeing F4B-4A, he trained in aerobatics as well as aerial gunnery. He also flew the SBU Corsair and the TBD Devastator.

In November 1939, his father was shot and killed, most likely by Al Capone's gunmen. During Capone's tax evasion trial in 1931 and 1932, O'Hare's father had provided incriminating evidence which helped finally put Capone away. There is speculation that this was done to ensure that Butch got into the Naval Academy, or to set a good example; it certainly at least partly involved an attempt to distance himself from Capone's activities. Whatever the motivation, the elder O'Hare was shot and killed while driving his car a week before Capone was released from incarceration.

When Butch finished his naval aviation training on May 2, 1940, he was assigned to Fighter Squadron Three (VF-3) on board . O'Hare then trained on the Grumman F3F and then graduated to the Brewster F2A Buffalo. Lieutenant John Thach, then executive officer of VF-3, discovered O'Hare's exceptional flying abilities and closely mentored the promising young pilot. Thach, who would later develop the Thach Weave aerial combat tactic, emphasized gunnery in his training. In 1941, more than half of all VF-3 pilots, including O'Hare, earned the "E" for gunnery excellence.

In early 1941, VF-3 transferred to , while carrier ''Saratoga'' underwent maintenance and overhaul work at Bremerton Navy Yard.

On Monday morning, July 21, O'Hare made his first flight in a Grumman F4F Wildcat. Following stops in Washington and Dayton, he landed in St. Louis on Tuesday. Visiting the wife of a friend in hospital that afternoon, O'Hare met his future wife, nurse Rita Wooster, proposing to her the first time they met. After O'Hare took instruction in Roman Catholicism to convert, he and Rita married in St. Mary's Catholic Church in Phoenix on Saturday, September 6, 1941. For their honeymoon, they sailed to Hawaii on separate ships, Butch on ''Saratoga'', which had completed modifications at Bremerton, and Rita on the Matson liner . Butch was called to duty the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

On Sunday evening, January 11, 1942, as Butch and other VF-3 officers ate dinner in the wardroom, the carrier ''Saratoga'' was damaged by a Japanese torpedo hit while patrolling southwest of Hawaii. She spent five months in repair on the west coast, so VF-3 squadron transferred to the on January 31.

World War II service

Medal of Honor flight

O'Hare's most famous flight occurred during the Pacific War on February 20, 1942. Lt. O'Hare and his wingman were the only U.S. Navy fighters available when a second wave of Japanese bombers were attacking his aircraft carrier ''Lexington''.

Butch O'Hare was on board the aircraft carrier ''Lexington'', which had been assigned the task of penetrating enemy-held waters north of New Ireland. While still from the harbor at Rabaul, at 10:15, the ''Lexington'' picked up an unknown aircraft on radar from the ship. A six-plane combat patrol was launched, two fighters being directed to investigate the contact. These two planes, under command of Lieutenant Commander John Thach, shot down a four-engined Kawanishi H6K4 Type 97 ("Mavis") flying boat about out at 11:12. Later two other planes of the combat patrol were sent to another radar contact ahead, shooting down a second "Mavis" at 12:02. A third contact was made out, but reversed course and disappeared. At 15:42 a jagged vee signal drew the attention of the ''Lexington''s radar operator. The contact then was lost but reappeared at 16:25 west. O'Hare, flying F4F Wildcat BuNo 4031 "White F-15", was one of several pilots launched to intercept nine Japanese Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bombers from the 4th Kōkūtai's 2nd Chutai. O'Hare's squadmates shot down eight bombers (with the ninth falling to an SBD later), but he and his wingman, Marion "Duff" Dufilho, were held back in the event of a second attack.

At 16:49, the ''Lexington''s radar picked up a second formation of "Bettys" from the 4th Kōkūtai's 1st Chutai, only out, on the disengaged side of the task force. With the majority of VF-3 still chasing the 2nd Chutai, only O'Hare and Dufilho were available to intercept. Flying eastward they arrived above the "Bettys" out at 17:00. Dufilho's guns jammed, leaving only O'Hare to protect the carrier. The enemy was in a V-of-Vs formation, flying very close together and using their rear-facing 20mm cannon for mutual protection. O'Hare's Wildcat, armed with four 50-caliber guns, with 450 rounds per gun, giving him about 10 three-second bursts.

O'Hare's initial maneuver was a high-side diving attack from the formation's starboard side employing deflection shooting. He managed to hit the outside "Betty"s right engine and wing fuel tanks; when the stricken craft of Petty Officer 2nd Class Ryosuke Kogiku (3rd Shotai)Ewing and Lundstrom 1997, p. 130 abruptly lurched to starboard, he switched to the next plane up the line, that of Petty Officer 1st Class Koji Maeda (3rd Shotai leader). Maeda's plane caught fire, but his crew managed to put out the flames with "one single spurt of liquid ... from the fire-extinguisher" Both Maeda and Kogiku would catch up with the group before bomb release.

With two "Bettys" out of formation (albeit temporarily), O'Hare began his second firing pass, this time from the port side. His first target was the outside plane, flown by Petty Officer 1st Class Bin Mori (2nd Shotai). O'Hare's bullets damaged the right engine and left fuel tank, forcing Mori to dump his bombs and abort his mission.Ewing and Lundstrom 1997, p.131 O'Hare then targeted the plane of Petty Officer 1st Class Susumu Uchiyama (1st Shotai), which became his first definite kill.

As O'Hare began his third firing pass, again from the port side, the remaining "Bettys" were nearing their bomb release point. First, O'Hare shot down Lieutenant (junior grade) Akira Mitani (2nd Shotai leader). This left the lead plane, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Takuzo Ito, exposed. O'Hare's concentrated fire caused the plane's port engine nacelle to break free from its mountings and fall from the plane. The resulting explosion was so violent that the 1st Chutai pilots were convinced that an anti-aircraft burst had struck their commander's plane. With a gaping hole in its left-wing, Ito's plane fell out of formation.

Shortly afterwards, O'Hare made a fourth firing pass, likely against Maeda (who had now caught up), but ran out of ammunition. Frustrated, he pulled away to allow the ships to fire their anti-aircraft guns. The four surviving bombers dropped their ordnance, but all their 250 kg bombs missed. O'Hare believed he had shot down six bombers and damaged a seventh. Captain Sherman would later reduce this to five, as four of the reported nine bombers were still overhead when he pulled off. Lieutenant Commander John Thach, hurrying towards the scene with reinforcements after mopping up the 2nd ''Chûtai'', saw three enemy bombers falling in flames at the same time.

In fact, O'Hare destroyed only three "Bettys": Uchiyama's, Mitani's, and Ito's. The last plane, however, was not yet finished. Ito's command pilot, Warrant Officer Chuzo Watanabe,Group leader Takuzo Ito was not piloting his own "Betty". As per standard practice in the IJNAF, the pilot was an enlisted man, and the commander of the plane was an observer and/or navigator. regained enough control to level his damaged plane and attempted to crash it into ''Lexington''. He missed, and flew into the water near the carrier at 17:12. Another three "Bettys" were damaged by O'Hare's attacks. Of these, Maeda and Kogiku safely landed at Vunakanau airdrome at 19:50, while Mori became lost in a storm and eventually ditched at Simpson Harbor at 20:10.

With his ammunition expended, O'Hare returned to his carrier, and was fired on accidentally but with no effect by a .50-caliber machine gun from the ''Lexington''. O'Hare's fighter had, in fact, been hit by only one bullet during his flight, the single bullet hole in F-15's port wing disabling the airspeed indicator. According to Thach, O'Hare then approached the gun platform to calmly say to the embarrassed anti-aircraft gunner who had fired at him, "Son, if you don't stop shooting at me when I've got my wheels down, I'm going to have to report you to the gunnery officer."

In the opinion of Admiral Brown and of Captain Frederick C. Sherman, commanding the ''Lexington'', Lieutenant O'Hare's actions may have saved the carrier from serious damage or even loss. By 19:00 all ''Lexington'' planes had been recovered except for two F4F-3 Wildcats shot down while attacking enemy bombers; both were lost while making steady, no-deflection runs from astern of their targets. The pilot of one fighter was rescued, the other went down with his aircraft.

The F4F Wildcat O'Hare flew was BuNo. 4031 as discovered in his Aviator Logbook. The side number was found out to be F-15 based on Captain Burt Stanley's Diary. After Lexington Returned to port, 4031 was transferred to VF-2 and flew from Lexington at Coral Sea. It was one of the 6 VF-2 Wildcats to survive as it landed on Yorktown. After Coral Sea it served in VF-42 and later Marine Air Group 23 before being struck in July 1944.

Accolades

On March 26, O'Hare was greeted at Pearl Harbor by a horde of reporters and radio announcers. During a radio broadcast in Honolulu, he enjoyed the opportunity to say hello to Rita ("Here's a great big radio hug, the best I can do under the circumstances") and to his mother ("Love from me to you").Ewing and Lundstrom 1987, p. 151. On April 8, he thanked the Grumman Aircraft Corporation plant at Bethpage (where the F4F Wildcat was made) for 1,150 cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes, a grand total of 230,000 smokes. Ecstatic Grumman workers had passed the hat to buy the cigarettes in appreciation of O'Hare's combat victories in one of their F4F Wildcats. A loyal Camel smoker, O'Hare opened a carton, deciding that it was the least he could do for the good people back in Bethpage. In his letter to the Grumman employees he wrote, "You build them, we'll fly them and between us, we can't be beaten." It was a sentiment he would voice often in the following two months.

Credited with shooting down five bombers, O'Hare became a flying ace, was selected for promotion to lieutenant commander, and became the first naval aviator to receive the Medal of Honor. With President Franklin D. Roosevelt looking on, O'Hare's wife Rita placed the Medal around his neck. After receiving the Medal of Honor, then-Lieutenant O'Hare was described as "modest, inarticulate, humorous, terribly nice and more than a little embarrassed by the whole thing".

O'Hare received further decorations later in 1943 for actions in battles near Marcus Island in August and subsequent missions near Wake Island in October.

Non-combat duty

O'Hare was not employed on combat duty from early 1942 until late 1943. Important events in this period included flying an F4F-3A Wildcat (BuNo 3986 "White F-13") as Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Thach's wingman for publicity footage on April 11, 1942, the Medal of Honor presentation at the White House on April 21, and the welcome parade in O'Hare's hometown on Saturday, April 25, 1942.

The welcome parade was held in St. Louis. At the starting point, O'Hare, wearing the blue-ribboned Medal of Honor around his neck, was guided to the back seat of a black open Packard Phaeton, where he sat between his wife Rita and his mother Selma. The parade began at noon, led by a police motorcycle escort, then came the band from Jefferson Barracks, marching veterans, a truck packed with photographers, O'Hare's Phaeton (with a six-man Marine honor guard alongside) and other open cars. Bringing up the rear was the entire 350-member student body of Western Military Academy. St. Louis Mayor William Dee Becker presented O'Hare with a gold navigator's four-dial watch engraved with the words "To Lt. Commander Edward H. O'Hare, USN, from a proud and grateful City of St. Louis, April 25, 1942". As Butch O'Hare's mother and his sisters clipped newspaper stories and photos the following days, his place in history began to dawn on them. A newspaper headline read, "60,000 give O'Hare a hero's welcome here." The United States in 1942 badly needed a live hero, and Butch O'Hare was a young, handsome naval aviator, so he participated in several war bond tours the following months.

On June 19, 1942, O'Hare assumed command of VF-3, relieving Lieutenant Commander Thach. He was relocated to Maui, Hawaii, to instruct other pilots in combat tactics. U.S. Navy policy was to use its best combat pilots to train newer pilots, in contrast to the Japanese practice of keeping their best pilots flying combat missions. Ensign Edward L. "Whitey" Feightner, who served with O'Hare in July 1942, later said that one of the best pieces of information O'Hare passed on to him, was:

O'Hare also related

An anecdote about O'Hare, serving as an instructor on Hawaii mid-1942:

On March 2, 1943, O'Hare met Rita and hugged his one-month-old daughter, Kathleen, for the first time. His family resided in Coronado at 549 Orange Avenue, near North Island NAS. At the end of March 1943, O'Hare made Ensign Alexander Vraciu, a young Naval Reservist just out of flight school, his wingman. On July 15, 1943, VF-3 swapped designations with VF-6 squadron.

Return to combat

Equipped with the highly successful follow-on to the Wildcat, the new Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat, two-thirds of VF-6 (twenty-four F6F-3s) under O'Hare's command embarked on August 22, 1943, on the light carrier . The arrival of the F6Fs with their powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engines in late 1943 combined with the deployment of the new carriers and the carriers immediately gave the U.S. Pacific Fleet air supremacy wherever the Fast Carrier Force operated. The Hellcat's first combat mission occurred on August 31, 1943, in a strike against Marcus Island. The F6F did well against Japanese fighters and proved that with the right tactics and teamwork the Japanese Zero need not be considered a superior enemy. VF-6's combat debut on the ''Independence'' also went reasonably well. For his actions in battles near Marcus Island on August 31, 1943, O'Hare was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. For his actions in subsequent missions near Wake Island on October 5, 1943, O'Hare was awarded a Gold Star in lieu of a second Distinguished Flying Cross.



On October 10, 1943, O'Hare flew with VF-6 again in the airstrikes against Wake Island. On this mission, the future ace Lt.(jg) Alex Vraciu was his wingman – both Butch and Vraciu shot down one enemy plane that day. When they came across an enemy formation Butch took the outside aeroplane and Vraciu took the inside plane. Butch went below the clouds to get a Japanese Mitsubishi Zero and Vraciu lost him, so Vraciu kept an eye on a second Zero that went to Wake Island and landed. Vraciu strafed the Zero on the ground, then saw a "Betty" bomber and shot it down. Upon returning to the carrier, O'Hare asked Vraciu where he went and Vraciu knew then that he should have definitely stayed with his leader. Alex Vraciu later said after the war, "O'Hare taught many of the squadron members little things that would later save their lives. One example was to swivel your neck before starting a strafing run to make sure enemy fighters were not on your tail." Vraciu also learned from O'Hare the "high side pass" used for attacking the Japanese Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bombers. The high side technique was used to avoid the lethal 20 mm fire of the "Betty"s tail gunner. The Wake Island raid would be the last occasion Butch would lead VF-6 in battle. According to orders dated September 17, 1943, October found O'Hare as Commander Air Group (CAG) commanding Air Group Six, embarked on . Functioning as CAG, O'Hare was given command of the entire ''Enterprise'' air group: Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters, Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers, Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers and 100 pilots.

Now overseeing three squadrons, O'Hare still insisted that everyone call him "Butch". O'Hare's VF-6 squadron would "still stay broken up" among three light aircraft carriers, the squadron had made itself just too useful filling out the light carrier air groups, and AirPac had no well-trained replacements on hand. As a result, Fighting Squadron Two (VF-2) boarded the USS ''Enterprise'' from November 1943 and became Butch's new Fighting Squadron. While he readied his new air group, he suffered what he intended as only a temporary separation from his beloved VF-6 "Felix the Cat" Squadron. The news, that the commanding officer had to leave them, hit also the men of VF-6 hard. O'Hare first flew a TBM-1 Avenger as CAG-6 command aircraft with bombardier Del Delchamps, AOM1/c and radioman Hal Coleman as crew members. With its good radio facilities, docile handling, and long-range, the Grumman Avenger made an ideal command aircraft for Air Group Commanders (CAGs), but Butch considered the Grumman torpedo bomber as a 'lame turkey' compared to the Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter.

Later Rear Admiral Arthur W. Radford honored a request from O'Hare to take a fighter as command aircraft instead of the Avenger, so O'Hare in a fateful decision happily drew Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat Bureau Number 66168 from the fleet pool to become his principal CAG plane, numbered "00". From 20 – November 23, 1943, the U.S. forces landed in the Gilberts (Tarawa