Today is the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, so I thought I'd share a snippet from the attack. Never forget these were human beings.
[The following takes place during the opening surprise attack on American Airmen who had been flying patrol and practice missions during the opening attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.]
Dickinson looked aft and saw a Japanese plane on fire, then returned his attention to the other fighters shooting up the tail of his own plane. He turned aggressively to throw off their aim, but his SBD was taking a pounding. The Zeros’ explosive and incendiary bullets “clattered on my metal wing like hail on a tin roof,” Dickinson recalled. A line of big holes crept across his wing. One punctured his left wing’s gasoline tank.
As the wing caught fire, Dickinson called back to his gunner, “Are you all right, Miller?”
Miller replied that he had expended all six cans of his ammunition, then let loose with a horrifying scream as he was shot again. “It was as if he opened his lungs and just let go,” Dickinson wrote. “I have never heard any comparable human sound. I believe that Miller died right then.” When he called again to the rear cockpit, there was no reply.
Source:
Moore, Stephen L. “Our World Was Shattered.” Pacific Payback: The Carrier Aviators Who Avenged Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway. NAL Caliber, 2014. 29. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Cressman and Wenger, Steady Nerves and Stout Hearts, 14.
Further Reading:
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