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I was born
on Nov. 24, 1920 in Paterson, NJ to Russell M. and Eileen Nellie (neé Ring)
Woodson. My father was a chief radioman
in the U.S. Navy. We moved to
Philadelphia in 1924, but my father was soon transferred to Guam in the
Marianas Islands. After he found
housing for us (a corrugated iron shack in Merico), my mother, older sister,
and I took the train cross-country to San Francisco, got aboard the USS Gold
Star and sailed to Guam. After a
few months at Merico, my dad found a much nicer residence for us in Agaña.
We
left Guam in February 1927 and came back on the USS Henderson through
the Panama Canal. We arrived a month
later in New York City where there was approximately two feet of snow at the
time. We then went to Fire Island on Long
Island, which had a lifeguard station with high-speed boats to get the rum
runners, a lighthouse station and its crew, and a USN radio direction finder’s
station where my dad was in charge. Due
to the fact there was no school there, he requested a humanitarian transfer and
we ended up in Amagansett, Long Island, NY.
I started first grade there in 1927.
Late
in 1928 my father was transferred to the Philadelphia Navy Yard to a destroyer
and we moved to Philadelphia where I attended St. Agatha’s School. My dad retired from the Navy in 1930 and we
moved to Pittsburgh, then Cleveland, Ohio; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Miles City,
Montana; and finally to Denver, Colorado where I finished my education in 1939
at East Denver High School.
I
joined the National Guard while still in school. While in the Guard, I applied for Annapolis but was not
accepted. In December 1939 I joined the
Navy (without being discharged from the National Guard) and went to boot camp
at San Diego. My friend Doan Watson
reported at the National Guard roll call that I had joined the Navy. After boot camp I went to aviation radio
school on North Island NAS, and graduated in June 1940, I believe. I went aboard the USS Manley, DD-74,
for transfer to the Panama Canal Zone.
I arrived at Cocosolo about one and a half weeks later and was assigned
to a PBY squadron, VP-32, in Panama.
I
stayed with VP-32 until August 1941 when I was assigned to the commissioning of
the USS Hornet Air Group. I was posted
to VS-8, a dive bomber squadron. We
flew SBC4s. We had our shakedown cruise
in the Caribbean, went back to Norfolk (we were there on December 7, 1941) and
finally went to San Diego around March 1942 where we changed our SBC4s to used
SBD3s. We went from San Diego to San
Francisco where we picked up Jimmy Doolittle and his 16 B25s and sailed for
Tokyo. We launched the B25s for their
raid on Japan on April 18, 1942 and returned to Pearl Harbor.
Four Sorties at Midway
We
went to Midway. I flew four times
during the battle: the morning of June
4th with pilot Don Kirkpatrick, the evening of the 4th with Al Woods (his rear seat
man was missing so I volunteered to fly), and the evening of the 5th and the
morning flight of the 6th with Kirkpatrick.
We made attacks at all times except the morning of June 4th, which was
an abortion for Hornet air group.
We never found the Japanese on that run. Torpedo Squadron 8 found the Japanese, however, but they were all
shot down with one survivor, George Gay.
My friend Ronnie Fisher was killed in that raid. I wrote to a girl he had been corresponding
with to let her know about Ronnie. We
continued writing to each other and she later became my wife.
I
was injured at Midway, but not seriously.
After we landed I mentioned to a friend that it really hurts when you
wear your helmet for a long time. He
asked, “what’s all that blood?” I took
my helmet off and he got some pliers and pulled a half-inch piece of shrapnel
from under my left ear. I didn’t know
about Purple Hearts and knew there was another flight that day that I didn’t
want to miss, so I never reported that injury.
We
returned to Pearl Harbor and then left for the South Pacific and the Coral
Sea. We were to be joined by the Saratoga
approximately the end of August, but it was hit by a torpedo. My pilot, Kirkpatrick, and I saw the oil slick
while on the lookout for Japanese submarines.
The Saratoga had a 20 by 26 foot hole in its starboard bow and
was returned to the states.
The
Wasp then joined us and on September 15th was hit by torpedoes and
caught fire. Ten of our planes took off
from the Hornet and flew to Espiritu Santo so the Wasp’s planes
could land aboard. Five dive bombers
were sent ahead of the ship on a search mission for Japanese subs and were then
to go on to Espiritu Santo. Five of us
in SBDs ran out of fuel and ditched near Pentecost Island in the New
Hebrides. One pilot, Tipas, didn’t have
a radioman since he had about five cases of liquor in his back seat to possibly
sell on the island. He took a different
route and crashed on another island in the area.
We
spent about four days on the island and were finally rescued by PBYs. All of the islands were inhabited by
cannibals—friendly, we hoped. We got
back aboard the Hornet and our next mission was on October 5th when we
(four fighters and 12 to 14 dive bombers) attacked Rekata Bay in the morning
and Guadalcanal later that day. Rekata
Bay was a seaplane base that we helped destroy.
On
October 15, 1942 we hit Bougainville in an early morning raid, and on October
26th we fought at the battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in the Solomons
campaign. As Kirkpatrick and I pulled
out of our dive after dropping our bomb, we found we were joined by four
Japanese Zeros, two starboard and one to port several hundred yards away, plus
one behind and below only about 25 yards away.
We were 50 feet above the water and making evasive moves, but we were
shot in the tip of the wing and rudder.
The Zero behind and below us shot me with a 20 mm. cannon shell that
came up between my feet and destroyed my radio transmitter and another that
went through my left knee and left side, taking out part of my cockpit. That shot slewed me around which put my guns
toward the port side of our plane. I
shot his wing off and watched him crash.
We were so close that, if he had lived, I could have recognized him if I
saw him on the street. He was my third
unconfirmed kill that day.
We
made it back aboard the Enterprise since the Hornet had been
sunk. We were the next to last plane
able to land on the Enterprise.
A crewmember was heard to say, “look, that plane’s bleeding!” It was from my wounds. Our plane was so damaged that it was shoved
over the side.
I
had surgery two days later. When we
pulled into Noumea, New Caledonia, I was transferred to the Solace, a
hospital ship. The Solace had to
go back to Guadalcanal so the injured were transferred to the Lurline, a
passenger ship, and I ended up in San Diego in December at Balboa Naval
Hospital. I was finally allowed to go
on liberty in February and met my future wife for the first time.
I
spent five months in the hospital at Balboa and was released in April
1943. I had orders to CASU 5 (Carrier
Aircraft Service Unit) which I didn’t want and reported instead to Commander,
Fleet Air West Coast for an assignment.
I finally found a dive bomber squadron (SBD-4s or -5s) that I was qualified
for and went to VC-58, then forming at Sand Point Naval Air Station in
Washington. We changed to TBF-1s and
after training we went to San Diego, were fitted with rocket rails, went across
country to Quonset Point, and finally down to Norfolk where we got aboard the
CVE USS Block Island. We made one trip with four destroyer escorts
to Casablanca and back which took about six weeks. We dropped sonic buoys after German submarines submerged but
didn’t make any attacks.
My
pilot, LCDR McCroskey, died in a night field carrier landing practice accident at
East Field. I started flying with LT
Helmuth E. Horner on the USS Guadalcanal on the next trip. In the middle of April 1944 we contacted a
submarine on radar, made an attack and hit it with two depth charges that
destroyed the ballast tanks. It
couldn’t submerge and they abandoned ship.
All 58 or so crewmembers survived and were brought aboard ship.
About
two nights later (we flew five nights out of six, launching at 2330 and
recovering at 0400) we caught another submarine on the surface. It submerged while we were making a run on
it and we dropped a sonic mine, a “hot dog,” which went off and destroyed the
submarine. We recovered seven or eight
survivors.
The
Guadalcanal returned to the states and Horner and I went out next time
on the USS Wake Island. We
didn’t see anything on that trip. We
returned to Norfolk where I got orders to flight school at Pre-Flight Training
in Iowa City, Iowa. Before reporting for
pre-flight training, I married Betty Lou Mathes in Long Beach, CA. I then went to the University of Iowa for
pre-flight school. I got out of there
in June 1945 and went to Memphis, TN for primary training. I was in primary training when the war ended
and we stopped flying for several weeks while the authorities figured out what
to do with us enlisted pilots. They
basically ended up purging us from the program.
I went from there to electronics school at Dearborn, Michigan at the
Ford Factory. Mr. Ford wanted his
property back since the war was over so the school was transferred to Great
Lakes Naval Training Center. I left
there and went to Annapolis. While
there, I got my private pilot’s license.
I spent a year at Annapolis and then was transferred to VPMS-1 in
Bermuda. When I reported to Norfolk, I
found out that VPMS-1 was being decommissioned and I ended up in VPML-8, the
first P2V squadron formed at Quonset Point.
I went there in July 1947.
I took a discharge from service in October 1947 in order to get on the
west coast where my wife and newborn daughter were living at the time. I reenlisted a month later in VP-42 at San Diego,
a PBM squadron. In September 1948 we
left San Diego and went to Tsingtao China.
We spent seven and a half months in Tsingtao, came back from there and
were decommissioned. From there I went
to VA-195 at Alameda Naval Air Station.
I spent about four months there, then requested a transfer to VC-5 at Moffett
Field. I got the transfer around
September 1949 and stayed in VC-5 until June 1954.
Around April 1950, while with VC-5, I was in one of three crews that flew a P2V off the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Navy wanted to get into the atom bomb race. This was a test run to see if a P2V could possibly carry an atom bomb for a long distance. I flew with Fillmore B. Gilkeson non-stop for 24.5 hours. We had to maintain a true air speed of 200 knots and climb to 10,000 feet in order to drop the bomb. In that trip we passed over Cuba, bombed (simulated) the Panama Canal, and returned to Moffett Field non-stop, a trip of approximately 5,000 miles.
Down to Earth
At Last
I
left VC-5 in 1954 and took orders for shore duty at Pt. Mugu, CA. I stayed at Pt. Mugu for two years and in
July 1956 received orders to the Naval Air Technical Training Center ATV
School. After finishing there I went to
Jacksonville, FL to VFP-62. I retired
from active duty in August 1959 and returned to California where my wife and I
had bought a house. I completed my
service with a Silver Star, three Air Medals, two Letters of Commendation and one
Purple Heart.
I
went to work for Naval Air Missile Test Center at Pt. Mugu in November
1959. I worked there on several
different projects, Gorgon Five and so on, until 1976 at which time I retired with
a total of about 37 years of federal service.
I had a TV shop in the meantime and ran it until 1983 when my wholesaler
closed down. Without a source of parts
I decided to give up that work. I
played golf with a group of friends most of the time, did crossword puzzles,
etc. My wife and I had four children. They are now all married and live in
California. I have one grandson, three
granddaughters and two step-granddaughters.
My wife passed away on June 4, 2001 from ALS (Lou
Gherig’s Disease). I’ve been living by
myself with my two cats since that time in the same house we bought in
1954. And that’s about all I have to
say.
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