On another training flight off Oahu in January 1941, Leaming was embarrassed by a gunnery practice foul-up. As his pilot, Ensign Norm West, flew past a tow plane – another bomber rigged with a target sleeve – Leaming struggled to fire his gun when ordered. Realizing he had put the gun on “safe,” he slid the safety sleeve over. He knew that Lieutenant Earl Gallager, the VS-6 flight officer, was a stickler for doing everything right the first time, so Leaming feared asking Ensign West to make a second pass.
Instead, he aimed his machine gun in the general direction of the sleeve and pressed the trigger in desperation. Leaming lost control of his weapon in the process and three bullets ripped through their SBC’s rear stabilizer.
Ashamed and scared, he called over the intercom: “Mr. West, I think I shot three holes in the stabilizer.”
”Think, goddamnit, don’tcha know?” the pilot shouted back.
Leaming confirmed his mistake, and West radioed for immediate permission to land at the Ford Island Naval Air Station in Pearl Harbor. Back on the ground, Ensign West just looked at their damaged tail and walked away, shaking his head in disgust. Leaming felt as though he were at the bottom of the ocean. The Scouting Six executive officer, Lieutenant Ralph Dempsey Smith, chewed him out thoroughly, informing him that a new stabilizer would tax the squadron budget to the tune of three thousand dollars.
Leaming was forced to write a letter to Smith, detailing how he had made such an error. Even worse was the endless ribbing he took from fellow radiomen Joe DeLuca and tom Merritt. Fortunately for Leaming, it was only a matter of weeks before Merritt too managed to shoot up his own plane’s tail, and he would not be the last.
Source:
Moore, Stephen L. “We Would Have One Helluva Celebration.” Pacific Payback: The Carrier Aviators Who Avenged Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway. NAL Caliber, 2014. 8. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Tillman, Barrett. The Dauntless Dive-bomber of World War II. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1976. Sixth printing, 1989, 10-12.
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