I drive on Doolittle Ave everyday and as a kid thought what a strange name for a street.
Have also visited the Hornet in Alameda many times... the last was with my neighbor who was guest of honor... quite an experience when you are the guest of a WWII fighter ACE... salutes and standing at attention still live in retirement.
Amazing the courage and determination shown by these men under the most trying of times.
I really didn't know much about it except he was a Navy pilot until I saw him on PBS documentary... and then mentioned it...
I guess when you are credited with saving the ship and shooting down 5 1/2 Japanese planes in one afternoon it defines your life from that moment on...
No matter where he was stationed... after combat he always took his personal Model A Ford with him... had a lot of fun with it in Okinawa and Hawaii and Pensacola...
The most interesting story is launching his Hellcat 3 different ways... conventional, off the fan tail when the flight deck was bombed and the most fascinating launching from the hanger deck... the ship was under attack and without getting the fighters in the air things were grim... he told the skipper he would rather go out in the cockpit and would fly out of the hanger deck... full throttle being restrained and launch... hit a crest of a wave and started gaining altitude... the rest is history... took a hit to his ankle on that mission from enemy fire shrapnel... when he came back to the ship half his cylinder heads were missing... oil was everywhere... after which he wrote Grumman a letter extolling the virtues of what a fine aircraft they had in the Hellcat...
Grumman F6F Hellcat | Military Wiki | Fandom
Funny thing is what makes a wartime hero often doesn't make for a good paper pusher in peacetime... the Navy had changed and he could wait to stop flying a desk at Pearl...
An Ace in a day: Ted Crosby's Air War in the Pacific - Warfare History Network
There is a lot under the sea... after Japan surrendered... the navy ships were non-stop gathering anything Japanese that could be used for war and dumping it into the sea... another of my friends was late to the war... as he was heading to the Pacific Japan surrendered... he spent most of his service time dismantling/destroying Japans war infrastructure... planes, cars, tanks, machinery all into the brink...