Chester Hill 1988
PILOT TO PRESIDENT
In late August 1944 we sorted with our fast carrier group TG38.4 from Eniwetok Atoll and by dawn of 1 September were standing off to the east of a little volcanic island called Chichi Jima. I well remember the names of those three major specks of land in the Bonins: Chichi Jima, Haha Jima, Iwo Jima. Commodore Perry had called in these islands nearly a hundred years previously, but the Occidental world had not heard much of them in the intervening years. A few whalers had been there in their heyday, but few others.
The aerial strikes on apparent enemy military installations ashore were proceeding without pause by midmorning. I was in CIC and among other things helping monitor the aircraft voice radio circuits, knowing that part of our duty was to be ready to attempt rescue of any of our plane personnel who might go into the drink for whatever reason – normal procedure for destroyers escorting carriers. This was our very first participation in such activities in combat. Things were seeming quite routine when a “MAYDAY” suddenly got our full attention. One of the light carrier USS SAN JACINTO’s TBDs flying low level bombing runs had been hit by AA fire and was going to ditch just north of Chichi Jima. We froze our attention to the squawk box, awaiting orders to proceed to the rescue, since we were as close to the area as any other destroyer. Very quickly, though, word was on the circuit that a submarine previously assigned close in patrol for the purpose was surfacing to make the pickup. She had been lying there at periscope depth awaiting the call.
I went up the ladder to the bridge, knowing that we probably would have visual contact at that ranges (about five or six miles) and put my glasses on the area. I was not able to spot the actual rescue but could clearly see about three of our planes circling close in to direct the submarine to the people in the raft. One of the crew had gone down with the plane.
Back in CIC quickly we heard some chatter on the circuits about the rescued pilot being the youngest carrier plane pilot in the whole Navy.
About forty-plus years later my wife and I were attending the third commissioning of the USS IOWA BB61 in Pascagoula, Mississippi. I was very interested in being there, since Swanson had been tied up in Brooklyn Navy Yard in November 1943 and I had observed her first commissioning, but not as a guest. The featured speaker for this later event proudly recalled his naval service in World War II, telling us about when, as the youngest carrier pilot in the Navy, he was shot down at a remote island called Chichi Jima, and was rescued by a submarine! I turned to Deena immediately and remarked, “We were there!”
I write this memoir in late afternoon of 8 November 1988, expecting that the morning news will hail that young pilot as the forty-first PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, George Bush!