![]() ![]() ![]() The lieutenant was plucked from the lake and survived the incident. Donald Douglass attempted to land on the carrier Sable in Lake Michigan. It was repaired after the fabled flight and became a trainer for flying cadets back in the States. Iverson’s SDB-2 Dauntless dive bomber as outdated and all shot up. He survived the war, became a builder and eventually retired to Charlotte County four years ago.īuffa in June 2014 at 94 holding a shadowbox of his sergeant stripes and medals he received while serving in World War II. Reid was killed in action on the Pusan Perimeter in August 1950 during the early dark days of the Korean War.īuffa was made the lead ground crew chief at Guadalcanal for SDB-2, Squadron 233. Iverson was killed in 1944 in a mid-air collision while serving as a flying instructor at Vero Beach, Fla. Reid was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Iverson received the Navy Cross for attacking the Hiryu. Half of the Marine, Navy and Army Air Corps aviators who flew off Midway that morning never returned. The airplane had 249 bullet holes in its metal skin. Reid, returned in their dive bomber, it looked like a piece of Swiss cheese. ![]() “Shortly after the Japanese attack, our planes started returning one at a time.” The mess hall and the power house were demolished in the attack,” Buffa recalled. First came the bombers, then the dive bombers, and finally the fighters. “They took off and almost immediately after they were gone, we were hit by 120 Japanese planes.” “We had the planes ready to go by sun up,” he said. It was sailing for the tiny island 1,200 miles east of Hawaii. that the Japanese fleet had been spotted 150 miles away. “They could outfly us on every turn.”īuffa and the other 1,450 Marines on Midway were alerted at 4 a.m. “The Zero was a fantastic plane,” he said. Their outdated, two-seater dive bombers were outclassed and outgunned by the swift and highly maneuverable Japanese Zero fighters. The 15 dive bombers that flew from Midway to intercept the massive Japanese fleet were flown by young Marine aviators with “less than four hours flying time,” Buffa said. Buffa’s job was to keep Iverson’s plane in good mechanical condition. During the battle, Iverson attacked Hiryu, one of the four enemy carriers sent to the bottom by U.S. man was a plane captain for a SBD-2 Dauntless dive bomber (BuNo 2106) flown by Lt. Midway was the decisive battle in the Pacific during Wolrd War II. ![]()
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