07/06/2024
This crash narrative is based on dozens of official military documents and three personal letters to the McKinney family from Chile and Jack’s VT-21 Commanding Officer, LtCdr Robert Lee “Bones” Savage, Jr., who debriefed the survivor Richard Dole and described the crash of #125 in each letter. This photo is of an unknown crew manning their TBF Avenger torpedo bomber for a mission somewhere in the Solomon Islands in 1943 exactly as Chile, Jack and Richard did on July 7.
THE CRASH OF TBF AVENGER #125.
At Guadalcanal and throughout the Solomon Islands on the night of July 7, 1943 there was no rain or fog, sparse cloud cover at 40%, minimum visibility of 10-miles, a slight easterly breeze at 1-mile per hour and an ocean surface temperature of 80-degrees. These conditions combined with the illumination provided by a quarter-moon made it a good night to attack J*panese shipping in their own backyard. Near sundown at 5:20 p.m., one Lockheed A-29 Hudson PBO flare ship took-off from Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, followed 5-minutes later by three Grumman TBF-1 Avenger torpedo bombers taking off at 2-minute intervals. All four aircraft headed northwest for the southern tip of enemy-held Bougainville Island, 300-miles away, to hunt in the Kahili anchorage and harbor. Upon arrival, the Hudson PBO dropped twelve flares from Moila Point easterly toward Alasina Island, turning night into day for the three trailing TBFs that spotted an Imperial J*panese Navy destroyer off Kahili. The TBFs attacked one at a time, each making their long glide-bombing run with a single AN-M66 bomb weighing 2,000-pounds, the Avenger’s maximum load. Antiaircraft fire from all J*panese ships and shore batteries was heavy and accurate. Chile attacked first, dropping his 1-ton bomb from 100-feet above the destroyer. It exploded 40-feet from the bow covering the entire ship with water and TBF #125 was hit by the destroyer’s return fire. The second TBF’s bomb hung-up and never released and enemy fire damaged a wing and blew out a tire that caused the TBF to ground-loop when it landed back at Henderson. Results for the third TBF are unknown, but it landed safely at Henderson Field at 10:30 p.m. with the second TBF. As Chile turned southeast to head for Guadalcanal, his damaged flight controls made flying the Avenger difficult. A few minutes later he was attacked by a twin-engine J*panese night fighter that killed his turret gunner, Jack Durner, who died instantly from multiple gunshot wounds. The fighter was likely the same twin-engine J1N1 Gekko (a.k.a. Irving), piloted by 'Ace' Ensign Shigetoshi Kudo, who had just shot down the mission’s Hudson PBO flare ship, number NZ2033, killing all five New Zealand aircrew who were never recovered. Chile’s TBF had received even more damage from the fighter. He lost his radio located below the turret and lost his landing gear when their hydraulic lines below and aft of the turret were shot away. He was soon lagging 40-minutes behind his two TBF wingmen and working hard to keep #125 flying. Chile had flown many night missions to Kahili and he could find his way home without any instruments. He flew #125 southeasterly down the middle of the Solomon’s parallel chain of islands known as “The Slot” until he spotted Savo Island. He knew Savo well because he had loitered over it many times waiting to rendezvous with other TBFs. He flew along Savo’s southern coast and aimed #125 about 2-miles north of Lunga Point on Guadalcanal to replicate the standard Henderson Field approach bearing of 122-degrees when arriving from the northwest. With no landing gear and deteriorating flight controls, Chile knew the best chance of survival for he and his radioman, Richard Thomas Dole, was a water landing. At the Russell Islands over friendly territory, Chile instructed Richard to prepare to ditch. Ditching procedure for a TBF radioman was to crawl from the belly compartment through a tunnel into the middle seat, or second cockpit, behind the pilot. The middle seat was where survival gear was stowed that Richard was trained to deploy and use. He was happy to receive the order because it took him out of the bloody belly of the TBF and out of sight of Jack’s lifeless body hanging in his harness in the gun turret above his shot-up radio operator's station. Chile knew there would be US Navy warships patrolling from 6,000 to 8,000-yards off Lunga Point, forming the anti-submarine outer screen that protected the myriad Allied ships along Guadalcanal’s north coast. He could clearly see Lunga Point defined by the gently breaking waves on the sandy beach and the rippling white water at the mouth of the Lunga River. Their VT-21 Squadron’s camp was on the east side of the river in a grove of Mango trees 60-yards from the beach, and it was oddly comforting knowing their friends were close by. Chile saw a long, white wake trailing behind a patrol ship and he carefully flew north towards her, planning to ditch as close as possible. Chile and Richard had followed all standard procedures for a water landing, but in the last seconds Chile lost control and he was unable to make a belly landing in a power stall as he had been trained. Chile was either knocked unconscious or trapped and Richard broke his right wrist when it slammed against the bulkhead. In shock and feeling little pain, Richard unfastened his harness and lifted the bi-fold hinged canopy. It took only a few seconds to spill into the water, inflate his Mae West, and kick away from the TBF where he briefly passed out. When he awoke, TBF #125 and Chile and Jack were gone, leaving nothing but a greenish slick of fuel and oil on the water and the acrid smell of a brief surface fire. Chile had done his job. He ditched at 11:10 p.m. about 1-mile from the minesweeper USS Skylark that arrived at the crash site at 11:15 p.m. and rescued ARM3c Richard Thomas Dole within a remarkable 5-minutes after ditching, an extraordinarily short amount of time for any sea rescue. Skylark took Richard to Lunga Beach where he was transported to the 52nd Field Hospital at Henderson Field. His right arm was put in a cast and he was debriefed by the VT-21 Commanding Officer, LtCdr Robert L. Savage, Jr. ARM2c Richard Thomas Dole never flew another combat mission and lived to be 70 years old.
