The American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews The Museum of Flight Seattle, Washington
John S. Thach
Interviewed by: Eugene A. Valencia
Interview Date: August 28, 1968
2
Abstract: Fighter ace John S. “Jimmy” Thach is interviewed about his military service with the United States Navy during World War II. He describes his wartime experiences as a fighter pilot, including his time as gunnery officer and skipper of Fighting Squadron 3 (VF-3). Topics discussed include his training and service history, his development of the Thach Weave aerial combat maneuver, and his initial encounters with Japanese aircraft.
The interview is conducted by fellow fighter ace Eugene A. Valencia.
Biography:
John S. “Jimmy” Thach was born on April 19, 1905 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1927 and, after two years of battleship assignments, enrolled in flight training. He was designated a naval aviator in 1930. For the next ten years, Thach served as a test pilot, patrol pilot, and flight instructor. He was then assigned to Fighting Squadron 3 (VF-3), first as gunnery officer and then as skipper. In 1941, he created the aerial combat tactic that would become known as the Thach Weave, which he developed in response to reports about the superior capabilities of Japanese aircraft. When the United States entered World War II, Thach and VF-3 were deployed aboard the USS Lexington (CV-3). He participated in early actions in the Pacific Theater, including the Battle of Midway in June 1942. He then returned to the United States as an instructor in combat tactics. After World War II, Thach served with Naval Air Training Command and commanded the USS Sicily (CVE-118) during the Korean War. In 1965, he was named Commander in Chief of U.S. Naval Forces, Europe. Thach retired as an admiral in 1967 and passed away in 1981.
Biographical information courtesy of: Boyce, Ward J., ed., American fighter aces album. Mesa, Ariz: American Fighter Aces Association, 1996.
Restrictions:
Permission to publish material from the American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews must be obtained from The Museum of Flight Archives.
Transcript:
Transcribed by Pioneer Transcription Services 3
Index:
Introduction ...... 4
Childhood hunting trips and athletic background ...... 5
Early aviation experiences ...... 6
U.S. Navy flight training ...... 8
Service details during the 1930s ...... 9
Intelligence reports on Japanese aircraft and development of the Thach Weave ...... 10
Aircraft modifications ...... 13
Thoughts on Japanese pilots and aircraft ...... 15
More on fighter tactic developments ...... 16
Fighter pilot characteristics ...... 18
Remembering Butch O’Hare ...... 20
Differences with current-day fighter pilots ...... 22
Gunnery training and proficiency ...... 23
Purpose of the interview and the importance of training ...... 25
Stories about family members ...... 26
First encounter with Japanese “Betty” aircraft ...... 27
4
John S. Thach
[START OF INTERVIEW]
00:00:00
[Introduction]
JOHN S. THACH: I had to stay back at Pearl Harbor, just me. And I was being increased to a 27-plane squadron. But VF-2 needed pilots, and he decided that we’d take VF-2 aboard the Lexington instead of VF-3—
EUGENE A. VALENCIA: Yes, sir.
JST: … the Saratoga had been torpedoed, and we were then—so a Lexington squadron. We’d been down at the Coral Sea, and that’s where Butch O’Hare [Edward H. “Butch” O’Hare] shot down these six planes in six minutes. The reason it is six—because I’ve seen since some film that—well, one of those Betties, the first time we’d ever seen any Betties, came down and looked like he was trying to crash aboard the Lexington. And the film shows one engine completely gone, the hole in the wing, and the other one was smoking. And he hadn’t been fired on by AA until they fell out of the formation that Butch was shooting at.
But—so I went to [unintelligible 00:01:16], and I said, “Admiral, don’t do this to me. It’s bad enough to take all my pilots away from me, but you won’t even let me go with you down—back down to the Coral Sea where the fighting is going to be.” And he said, “Well, we need you more up here. We’ve got new pilots coming out, and somebody’s got to tell them something. You’ve got to do it.” So I had 27 airplanes, and I was the only pilot in the squadron, the skipper of the squadron and 27 airplanes. I took the chief petty officers. I said, “You’re the executive, you’re the gunnery officer, you’re the engineering, and so forth.” And I flew all those 27 airplanes, one after the other, around the clock to be sure that the guns were working and everything was in shape. And then I began to get a trickle of people.
EAV: Well, Admiral, to go back a bit, when you—
JST: And they were the ones I had during the Battle of Midway. New people that weren’t my original squadron at all.
EAV: To back a bit, sir—
JST: Except my exec, who got his head cut off just before the battle.
EAV: How was that, sir?
JST: His wingman landed on him on the Yorktown. 5
[Childhood hunting trips and athletic background]
EAV: To go back a bit, sir. Do you think that, when you were hunting with your dad, when that—
JST: What?
EAV: When you were hunting with your dad—
JST: Oh, yeah.
EAV: …you could darn near just hold a 12-gauge shotgun up, that—and shooting dove—or quail.
00:02:46
JST: That was in this Collier’s magazine. That’s where you must have got it.
EAV: Yeah.
JST: Or maybe it was in National Rifle or something.
EAV: But do you think that that kind of motivated your—
JST: No question about it. No question about it.
EAV: The association, I mean—just to be together—
JST: Yeah. Yeah. We used to go away for two weeks and not see another human being.
EAV: The children of today, this is what they need. I mean, association.
JST: That’s right. I think so, too. He taught me more—one of the things he taught me was that in any organization, an organization of two people hunting and fishing, that each one of them has got to pull his own weight.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: You can’t let the other one do it. You’ve got to do enough of it. You’ve got to do your half, your share. And if you try to do a little more, it gives you an awful good feeling. I used to— when I finally got this [unintelligible 00:03:44], I used to try to do more than he did. And he’d laugh, and he would let me. [unintelligible 00:03:53], I got to do half of it, too. But it was a wonderful association. I think it did—
EAV: But don’t you think today, sir, that the youth— 6
JST: He taught me a desire for accuracy, too, in shooting or fishing. Because he could lay a fly on that corner on your hat if he—anytime he wanted to. Well—
EAV: Well, Admiral, after you won the state championship as quarterback, I mean, how—of course, you were using the [unintelligible 00:04:28] then?
JST: Uh—
00:04:28
EAV: Not the T-formation—it was a [unintelligible 00:04:31] at that time, wasn’t it?
JST: Yes. Actually, we didn’t win the state championship when I was on the team. I want to get that straight. It was a team that I had—they won the state championship after I left, after I graduated. So I don’t take any—well, I—just between you and me, I do take some credit for it because—
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: …we had a good team going. But we came close to it in my last year, and they won it the next year. But—
EAV: Well, Admiral, you’ve always had coordination, whether it be shooting or sports or whatever you had, it was always there.
JST: Well, you know, I think most people who like to do things—have a spirit a competition. They want to excel. Even if they’re not competing with anybody, maybe the last score or against anything, they want to do it well.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: Even if nobody’s looking. [laughs]
[Early aviation experiences]
EAV: Then from there, of course, as I asked you earlier, sir, that—
JST: Look, my name is Jimmy, Gene.
EAV: Thank you, sir.
JST: [unintelligible 00:05:55]. At least that’s my nickname. My real name is Jack. I’m a confusing character. [laughter] 7
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I thought it was John.
JST: It is. John Smith.
EAV: John Smith, yeah.
JST: But at home, my family calls me Jack. And in the Navy, I’ve always been Jimmy because of my brother.
00:06:14
UW: Good.
EAV: But, you know, sir, the drive you had—and as I understand it, the—your first—now, you did repair a plane when you were—during your formative years. But you put a couple of willow branches—
JST: Oh, yeah.
EAV: …to get a plane together. But the—
JST: I helped a guy who was a barnstormer.
EAV: That’s right.
JST: He came in this little field in Fordyce, Arkansas, and he—in order to get in, he had to scrape the tops of the trees.
EAV: Check something…
JST: [unintelligible 00:06:59]. And he said he wanted—if I knew where any willow trees were. I said, “Yeah, over in the creek bottom.” He said, “Would you go over and cut me some?” So he let me help him. I was a little kid then. It was the first airplane I’d ever seen or that anybody else had ever seen.
EAV: Well, that’s the way old Captain Eddie got started.
JST: I was amazed at how easily he did this. The fabric was torn and the couple of ribs and the trailing edge of the elevator, and he just opened it up, wired these willow stems—sticks just about the right size, and then closed it up and slapped some glue on it.
EAV: Took off?
JST: And in an hour, he was just flying again.
8
[U.S. Navy flight training]
EAV: [unintelligible 00:08:00]. Admiral, it’s—of course, you being our greatest hero in the Air Forces—our savior, you might say—then it wasn’t until ‘29 that you flew—you were really—you really soloed the aircraft.
00:08:23
JST: Oh, I soloed in 1927—I mean—yeah, 1927. It was another confusing thing. That was the year that they took all of the people in each class, in the class of ‘27—I don’t know whether it was the first time they’d done it; maybe it was the second—and had what we call in aviation elimination training. They wanted to find out what percentage of our graduating class could learn how to fly. And then those who did well enough with five or six hours of dual instruction, they let them solo. So I was up to solo within a—well, a couple of—well, several wood shots from here, right at Ream Field. I soloed at Ream Field in 1927. And then we filled out a form that said, “Do you desire further flight training?” And I put a great big yes on it, and I didn’t hear any more about it until I got orders to Pensacola in February of 1929.
EAV: Well, Admiral, when you went in 19—
JST: I went there in March.
EAV: …in ‘30, in 1930, when you went to Fighting 1, how did they select you for it? I mean, was it just a—did you—
JST: Because I stood one in flying and training in my class. I stood one in ground school, and I stood one in flying.
EAV: No one’s ever known that.
JST: I haven’t told anybody, but you can look at the record. [laughs] And the top people that had the highest marks in flying they sent to fighter squadrons—
EAV: Did you have any trouble being assimilated into the [rope tiers?] and—
JST: Oh, no. That was really easy. We had to fly nine planes tied together.
EAV: Nine planes tied together with rope?
JST: With 21-thread manila. And go up—take off and go up and do what maneuvers one— you could imagine, not too many, but do them and land without breaking a single rope. Now, this 21-thread manila is about a manila line about the size of your finger, and it will—it would break if two planes got suddenly too far apart, which is a good thing. 9
EAV: At that time, it’s amazing the Navy stood for it, I mean, really.
JST: I know it. I know it.
[Service details during the 1930s]
EAV: I mean, it’s just amazing. Admiral, then when you—in 1939, when you got back to fighters after your fantastic patrol work—your flying the—
JST: [unintelligible 00:11:34] and made [sled?] recoveries. Those were hairy. [laughs]
EAV: And then you went to a—you flew one of the longest flights in a PBY—or a new type. Hall [unintelligible 00:11:51], I believe it was.
JST: Yeah, XP2H-1.
EAV: And—
JST: I was a test pilot on it earlier.
EAV: It’s amazing how you—I believe that you were one of the few naval aviators that’s ever stayed active—I mean, really current in aviation all this time, so that when you went—when December 7th did happen, you were no desk jockey. I mean, you were pretty damn—
00:12:14
JST: Well, I—when I was in—
EAV: Excuse my language, you were—
JST: When I was in VP, I kept my hand in in fighters, because the station had a couple of fighters and [Ruff?] Johnson and I used to go out and do some flying and fighting. And also, we were selected to be the ones to be the target against the free gunners for their gunnery exercises, [unintelligible 00:12:37]. And so we’d dive on them and so forth. And, you know, the people in those large airplanes—and this—I don’t know whether you remember this or not, or whether you got involved in it, but remember the idea that if you got a kind of a battleship of the air and put bristling guns all over it that a fighter couldn’t get near it because it would have so many guns.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: Well, I never did believe this and—but people in those patrol squadrons that I was in in VP-5, a lot of them were—would argue with us all night long, argue with me by saying, “Look, well, gee, if you—fighter pilots don’t have a chance against these—all these guns we’ve got.” 10
And of course, as you know, the—the Air Corps, they built the Flying Fortress and that was invincible. And they didn’t need fighter escorts.
EAV: The first three planes shot down over Norway [unintelligible 00:13:37].
JST: Yeah. And this was going on in the Navy, as well as the Air Corps.
EAV: Did they have that bomber concept that—
JST: The patrol squadron—it was multi-engine. First these two wing guns. They had a turret in the front, and they had a turret on top and then these side guns that they could shoot down and so forth. So they had quite a few 50-caliber. But good grief, the poor guys—it’s just—was one of the laws of nature is that the human eye can’t put all those calculations together to hit a fighter pilot coming in with a changing angle, changing speed, everything changing all the time. But to the fighter pilot, this was just what he wanted because his guns were fixed and all he had to do was finally get lined up in the right spot and be sure the bubble is in the center and squeeze.
00:26:08
[Intelligence reports on Japanese aircraft and development of the Thach Weave]
EAV: Sir, when you get back to 1939 and you were [unintelligible 00:14:50] a gunnery officer—
JST: Yeah.
[telephone rings]
EAV: …in VF-3, was there—did you kind of—I mean, was this a new—I mean, did you go at it like a lion with a tiger—
JST: Oh, yeah. I was glad to get back. I had a feeling that there was going to be a war.
EAV: You really did, sir?
JST: Oh, yeah. Oh, my wife would say this—this is the reason I developed the Thach Weave. I didn’t name it the Thach Weave. Jimmy Flatley did. But this, frankly, was the reason. This is a story I think you ought to have because it shows that the Navy was—people in the Navy were really craning in earnest. We got this intelligence report out of China about an airplane that the Japanese had, and the intelligence report was fantastic. It gave the thing about an 8,000- or 10,000-feet-a-minute climb and a hell of a lot of speed and the—but the way it was written, it sounded like it was written by a fighter pilot. I thought a Chinese fighter pilot must have written this. And it said that you can get on tail—if you ever get on the tail of one of these things, don’t 11
think that you’ve got it, because he does some fantastic flip-over and he’s on your tail. Now, what he was doing was just doing turning vertically inside.
EAV: Was this the Chennault thing that—
JST: No. This is before the Flying Tigers. I don’t think it was Chennault. I [unintelligible 00:16:36] maybe. This intelligence report was distributed to the fighter squadrons.
EAV: Very few people in the Navy really knew [unintelligible 00:16:47] the Zero.
JST: Yeah. And—but we had this piece of paper, intelligence report, and it was—it told us— it came out of China and by people who had fought these things by—this was early in—well, let’s see now. It was either in—it was around—or—Christmas time in 1940. And I studied the thing. I decided, well, I better talk to—I better route it through the pilots and have them comment on it. Well, some said this is obviously not so because it’s just—it’s utterly exaggerated. It couldn’t be. And so I called everybody together. I said, “Look. Let’s say this is nuts. So let’s say it’s exaggerated 100%. So this airplane is only half as good as it is. Now, let’s change the figures, make it only half as good. Look what we’ve got. It still out-climbs, out-speeds, and can turn inside of us. So let’s get ready.”
Every night—living there in [unintelligible 00:18:09] in a little house. I had one kid in my—I used to stay up until after midnight every night working on a table, a dining room table, with matches. I’d put them in a three-plane formation, and I’d say, “All right. Now here comes a three-plane formation, and here comes this Zero—or these Zeros. What do we do?” Well, obviously, we’re scared of them, so we turn towards them. We don’t turn away from them or they’re on our tails. And then what happens? Well, they climb up and then they turn over and they come down on us, or they’ll take a head-on shot. So let’s—I decided, well, let’s see. Let’s take two three-plane squadrons—two three-plane sections—and just before they get within range, let’s turn out and give them a choice. In other words, make—give them two targets instead of one—
EAV: Yes, sir.
00:19:51
JST: …and this is something sudden that happens that they don’t expect. They’ll go for one or the other one will—can turn around and get a side shot anyway. [clears throat] And this one can still get the head-on shot in equal trade. Well, I—the next day, I took six planes up, and I got some people to pretend they were Zeros. And the three planes couldn’t turn fast enough because that inside man, he just couldn’t make it. He’d get—always get lost. So I decided, “Hell, let’s throw him away and just use four planes.”
EAV: Ah. 12
JST: Because I always felt that, when I was flying wing—and I kept remembering—when I was a wingman in a three-plane section, [unintelligible 00:20:01] was over here and Duckworth [Herbert Duckworth] was leading, he’d make a tight turn and I’d always—especially if we were about to shoot, I’d always feel like, well, I’ve got to watch three things. I’ve got to watch my leader because I’ve got to stay with it. I’ve got to watch that other wingman or I might run and slide into him. And I’m going—supposed to shoot. This is silly. It’s impossible. So I decided, well, the two planes, you could turn as fast as you want. You just whap it right over, even if he’s on the inside and all he does is just slide under. We used to slide over, remember? Stepped up [unintelligible 00:20:38]—
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: …slide over. And this just didn’t look good to me. Well, I worked night after night for months trying little things with these matches, and finally, I decided that’s what I’m going to do. So I would try it. Then I—it seemed to work. So I put them out equal distance from a tactical diameter, so that when they come around, the tighter turn two planes could make—which is about the same as one—they would go past [unintelligible 00:21:09], and the one that initiated the turn would always go under. So I—well, this will work if we’ve got a head-on shot. We’ll fly like that. And if the enemy goes for one of them, the other one takes a shot, and so he’s got cross-fire against him. If he’s up above us and comes diving down on us, we’d watch out for each other’s tails. This was an important part, this lookout doctrine. You never tried to look back at your own tail. You couldn’t do it anyway.
And see him being attacked—and I told them. I said, “Now, we’ve got to wait. You can’t do this too soon. Wait until you know he’s almost within range and committed and then do the sharp turn. And this is the signal that this fellow is about to be fired on. And don’t worry. He’ll turn.” So he’d turn. It did two things. It threw his aim off—the enemy’s aim off. He’s either diving or coming in this way. And if he tried to follow, it brought him right around, which was a really easy shot for these other two. And then you just—we—and in the Battle of Midway, I saw one coming in on my—the other section, and I turned. Well, this guy turned real fast, too, and he tried to go under me. “Good grief. He’s forgotten everything.” And he turned awful fast. And I decided, “Well, I wonder if there’s one on my tail.” I looked back, and it was burning, the one on my tail. And I got the one on his tail, and there were two going down at the same time. So you could work this thing.
But the first time I ever really was able to work it defensively against Zeros was in the Battle of Midway. Now, before, we used it offensively by bracketing the bombers and—any large airplane with no fighters around it—and just come in at one-two punch, making high—overheads, high sides, and so forth.
00:23:28 13
[Aircraft modifications]
EAV: Well, Admiral, we were—which saved all the F4Fs’, excuse my language, butts—and, well, you—Joe Foss and Marion Carl and the rest of them, they all attribute everything to you, which we all do. But the first time, sir, that you saw a Zero, were you surprised?
JST: Um, no. Well, I was surprised—I was surprised at the numbers because I saw 20 all at once coming down on us.
EAV: Was that at Midway?
JST: Yeah.
EAV: And that was the time that—you said it, and I think it—if I might add, sir, that Carl said the same thing, and Foss said the same thing. You know, Foss was a converted bomber guy, got out here and went out—but he said that everyone talks about the fact that we had armor plate and self-sealing tanks—
JST: I took mine out.
EAV: I—well, here’s your report, sir. I have it here. And it’s a most—it’s the most [unintelligible 00:24:51] report, sir, and even in the paper. It says that they have superior aircraft.
JST: The reason I took it out because I’m not going to let a guy sit back on my tail and ring that bell, bong, bong, bong. That’s the only time that armor plate would do you any good, you know.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: Because if you’re going to move, he’s going to be shooting across the armor plate and you’re going to be in front of it.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: And all he’s doing is just weighting you down. We needed all the weight removal we could possibly get. I considered taking out a pair of the guns, but I thought, “No. Can’t do that. We need those guns.”
00:25:30
EAV: Well, sir, on the report here that I thought was just outstanding—well, I mean, we have to—it was just amazing to me that somebody would still be able to recall it. 14
JST: In my squadron, I took mine out, told [unintelligible 00:25:58], “Unscrew that thing.” And then I called the other pilot together. I said, “Anybody wants to keep it, you can, but mine is out and I don’t think it’s going to do you any good.” They all had them out. [laughter]
EAV: Is that the armor plate?
JST: Yeah. Every one of them took them out.
EAV: The armor plate?
JST: Yeah.
EAV: Is that right, sir?
JST: Yeah, the armor plate. Why have it? It didn’t do any good. It just added weight, and we wanted another foot or two of climb.
EAV: You were pretty heavy in those days, sir.
JST: Well, I thought more of ability to climb than I did—I figured that, with my lookout doctrine, nobody’s going to sneak up on my tail. If you happened to be alone, get separated, and you’re flying along and you’re doping off and not turning and looking back every—often enough, somebody could slip on your tail and then the armor plate would do you some good. But I never planned to get in that situation, and I didn’t.
EAV: I’m surprised you weren’t court-martialed for—
JST: Well, they couldn’t very well because they’d just decorated me with three medals at once. [laughter]
EAV: Well, obviously, you were not too happy at that.
JST: [pause] I haven’t seen this since then.
EAV: Is that right, sir?
JST: No.
EAV: Well, I try not to waste your time. I wanted to—as I say, for a lieutenant commander in those days, we were still—as an ensign and JG, you were pretty damn positive, sir, if I might add.
JST: Yeah. And, you know, this is what the Corsair turned out to be. Superior in at least climb in speed, if not maneuverability. The Corsair and the F6, they could speed away and then 15
climb. They still couldn’t turn inside a Zeke, but that’s all right. We understood that, but at least when you got two—
EAV: [unintelligible 00:28:36] apply your tactics, too—
JST: Yeah.
EAV: …which I did and—
JST: What date is this? It’s right—
EAV: That was after Midway, I believe.
JST: Yeah. It was right after Midway. I haven’t seen that since I wrote it. [laughs]
00:28:52
EAV: I’ll be darned. Well, I was quite surprised, you know, because normally you think, “Well, gee whiz.”
JST: Well, it said in here that I flew them without.
EAV: I know that. But, you know, again, sir, the old adage of, “Well, if we didn’t have any armor, we weren’t protecting our pilots, and this is why we’re—”
JST: Also criticize them for building an airplane that you couldn’t pull the wings off. I said— I’d like to have an airplane that you can pull the wings off if you force it back too much. Then I know I’ve got something that isn’t overweight due to an over-cautiousness in making the airplane too strong.
[Thoughts on Japanese pilots and aircraft]
EAV: Admiral, what did you think of the Japanese pilots?
JST: The ones that I saw in combat were like professional circus acrobats. They were good. And you asked me what I’d think when I first saw the Zero. When I first saw it, I didn’t just see one. I saw 20 coming down, and then shortly thereafter a number of more—I didn’t have time to count these, maybe six or eight—came in head-on against the torpedo planes. And perfectly timed, just after the head-on pass, some more came in this way. First, this one head-on and this way. That was—
EAV: “This way” means towards—
JST: Side approaches. 16
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: From the—each bow, they came in from each bow under the—on the torpedo planes. I had to admire this beautiful coordination, even though I thought that I would never tell anybody about it. And I was convinced that I wouldn’t, but it was certainly magnificent. And—but then after that, we’d been—we began working this weave, trying to stay over the torpedo planes. We’d see one coming in at it, and planes over here would dive this way or dive that way and keep coming back and try to shoot one or spoil his aim, at least, and come back and try to stay over them. But once the torpedo planes split and [unintelligible 00:31:25] attack, you could only cover about two. And by that time, I had only three planes left. I started out with six, but I put four right above the torpedo planes, just to 1,500 feet, and two below down close on the water.
EAV: Yes, sir.
00:31:47
JST: And those two back below, they got knocked off, I thought. They got badly shot up and got separated, and then it was only a single airplane. They couldn’t do very much because the Zeros were riding him. And they just got out on the water and did like this and got shot up with a lot of holes in them. One of them didn’t make it, but they picked him up later out of the water.
[More on fighter tactic developments]
EAV: Midway was the first time then the Thach Weave was really put in operation.
JST: No. The Coral Sea. I was talking to Jimmy Flatley all the time. As a matter of fact, Jimmy dropped by to help me after I started to get these new pilots in when I had 27 airplanes and only one pilot.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: He was on his way to take command of a squadron, and he came by and helped me take gunnery flights with them. And also, just about that time, they—
EAV: Excuse me, sir. [background conversation]
[recording stops and starts again 00:33:14]
JST: Whenever Jimmy Flatley and I could get together—and we made an effort to get together frequently— we would talk about this problem of the Zero and what we ought to do about it. And we, of course, lived, ate, and slept fighter tactics. So he said, “I think I will try—I want to try the two-plane section, but I want six airplanes instead of four. I’m going to put two 17
up on top.” And I said, “Fine. We ought to do different things because we want to find out what is the best, and be sure and let me know what you think.” Well, right after the Coral Sea Battle, he sent a message. He sent an official one and then he sent one personally to me. And he said, “The four-plane tactics is the only way to survive.” He said, “Those two that I put up top side couldn’t do it. And I have named this tactic the Thach Weave. Congratulations.” That’s Jimmy Flatley.
00:34:35
EAV: Wasn’t he a wonderful guy?
JST: Oh, he was terrific.
EAV: He was always so [unintelligible 00:34:39].
JST: Yeah. Yeah. And he was plenty good. But we—while he was there for about a two- week stopover on his way to the Lexington to get to this squadron, there was a P-39 Air Force squadron base right near us at [Kaneohe?]. And they would watch us shooting on these sleeves—
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: …and they got real curious. And we got very friendly with them, and they said, “Look, we’d like to do some of that.” But he said, “We don’t have the airplane for it.” He said, “The P- 39 won’t make an overhead approach.” It just won’t. You couldn’t do it with a P-39. Couldn’t pull out. Well, their training system in tactics was so different that they hadn’t been introduced to this. So Jimmy Flatley and I went out and took some of them with us and made some approaches and led them through some high-sides. And then they said, “Yeah. Well, we—this overhead looks real good, but we don’t want to try that.” I said, “Let me fly one of the P-39s. I’d like to investigate this.” “Oh, great.”
So I took it out and felt it out, and it would—it picked up speed very rapidly, so you’d have to make a few adjustments. But then I flew a P-39 and led them through, and they loved it. They thought this was the greatest. But they’d just never been introduced to it. And then I go back again to these orders to gunnery exercises, OGE, that made us really do some tough, difficult shooting if we were going to get any score in [unintelligible 00:36:56].
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: And I think that the camera gun was another unique thing that we had in Navy squadrons. And to me, this was closest to the real thing because you were fighting another human being, not just shooting at a sleeve. And with all the clocks synchronized, you’d go out against an opponent, and you could see by the pictures—the film that came out—who got the first few shots in. 18
[Fighter pilot characteristics]
EAV: Well, Admiral, as we were talking earlier, sir, when you as gunnery officer and, later, as commanding officer of the—well, the top squadron in the Pacific at the time—when a lad reported in to you, sir, could you tell whether he had it?
JST: Not immediately. I think I’d—you’d get an impression that he’d be a real good fighter pilot or maybe he wouldn’t. But after you knew him a little bit—and we played softball with the—anybody that would play softball or not. It didn’t make a difference. We’d get out and team up. See how he moved and—
EAV: Coordination.
00:38:19
JST: Coordination. And also, I would look at his attitude in getting to know him a little better and then take off and fight against him. And then you knew. He was either going to be good or he was maybe a liability.
EAV: Now, if he—if that assessment was made, sir, how did it work out? How did your assessments work out in combat?
JST: Well, I had a little black book. I never told anybody about it. I wouldn’t think of showing it to any of the pilots, and I didn’t want to let it get out because I was afraid that the relatives might hear about it if they did get killed. And I put down these names in the order in which I thought they were the highest risk of being killed.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: And that’s the way it worked. That’s what happened.
EAV: For goodness sake.
JST: Because I knew them real well, and I think [unintelligible 00:39:21]. And I figured that Butch O’Hare would be the last one if everybody got knocked off. He would still be there because he was terrific.
EAV: Well, Admiral, what—
JST: He was a sort of a—
EAV: What other prerequisites—I mean, [unintelligible 00:39:50]—we use Butch as one—I mean, what were the prerequisites for a—that you would consider in your— 19
JST: Well, I think that in any game that anyone would play, he would give it everything he had. Take tennis. He would go after every ball because he might get it, and if he didn’t go after it, he’d never know whether he could have won or not.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: That sort of an attitude.
EAV: He had—
JST: Tempered with the situation, the way the game is going, and his physical condition. No use in running after something uselessly, but—
EAV: He had to have a good attitude?
JST: Yes. And he’s got to be, as the Marines say, gung-ho. He’s got to really want very much to get in there and mix it.
00:40:43
EAV: Do you think a fighter pilot is a special breed?
JST: Well, I’d like to answer that question very carefully because—let’s see, I made a little note on that question. [long pause] Well, I think that after he becomes a real good fighter pilot, he could be considered a special breed. Because he’s been through something that no one else has. He’s been through a thing that maybe many other people, had they followed that particular path step by step—and I think it is a step-by-step thing to develop a good fighter pilot.
EAV: He has to be accepted.
JST: Yeah.
EAV: In the squadron.
JST: Right. Then perhaps you could say, yes, he’s been through something and he’s experienced something and he had those things to take all of the steps to get there, that step-by- step development. He’s got to have what the football announcers say, plenty of cool. He’s got to have the willingness to make, again, what they call a second effort and a third effort. And he’s got to be—he’s got to have courage enough not to be—not to have stage fright—
EAV: And he can react.
JST: …when the time comes and that he can think of all those little things and the process of getting in a position to make a—to win, to make a kill while he’s doing it. He’s got to pay attention. He can’t be frightened to death. He’s got to have courage enough so that this doesn’t 20
bother him too much. And he’s got to have the training and accuracy to hit. And what we used to say, make every bullet count.
One of the things I thought was terrible that happened to us, we ran out of 50-caliber ammunition in the training period before the war. And there was a great shortage of it. My squadron, I think, was worse than any because we had had some engine changes and so forth and we had our planes out of commission—this was about six months before the war—and we were behind in our training schedule. By the time we got to the point where our planes were ready and we could get out and train, the supply of 50-caliber ammunition was extremely low. And a very good friend of mine—I play golf with him frequently now—is Admiral Paul Ramsey. He had VF-2 at that time. And one night, my chief gunner and I stole some ammunition from him. I’ve never told him about this and—but apparently he didn’t miss it. So we got enough so that we could go out and, instead of firing a burst of 12 in training on a sleeve, we’d fire one round for each approach, one round.
EAV: For goodness sake.
JST: And this maybe helped us. I wouldn’t advocate a shortage of ammunition, but this experience part of the time and having to hit with only one bullet is like shooting a non-repeating rifle and having only one bullet and one pass.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: We had to train that way. And, you know, it’s surprising how many times we’d get that one bullet in the right place.
EAV: Well, Admiral, again, it’s—do you think—
[Remembering Butch O’Hare]
JST: And I drilled into my squadron: make every bullet count. I’ve said that hundreds of times. Remember, you’ve got to make every bullet count. And obviously, Butch O’Hare agreed with me. Because he made just about all of his count.
00:45:48
EAV: Six planes in—
JST: Six minutes.
EAV: …in four minutes—six minutes. 21
JST: I think it was about six minutes. Anyway, it was less than a plane a minute. But he had this formation, bombing formation, of nine planes in rigid formation, and he just swept back and forth, and he shot down more than—he hit more than one plane on a number of his passes because he’s lining them up like blackbirds on a rail when he came in on a flat-side approach. And they were in apparently flat formation. Or—and so he would shoot through one and some of the bullets would hit the next one—
EAV: You must have been pretty proud that day.
JST: Oh, I certainly was. And, you know, I told him, I said, “You’ve done something that I never—nobody ever has done before, and it’s something that—it’s a tremendous lift for everybody in the Navy and maybe everybody in the United States, if they ever hear about it. And I’m going to recommend you for the highest medal I can.” He said, “Oh, don’t do that. I’ll have to back, and I don’t—look, I was only doing what you taught me. I was only doing what I’m supposed to do. What else are we out here for?”
EAV: [unintelligible 00:47:12] I understand that on you—when you went on—
JST: He didn’t want a medal.
EAV: On March 20th and—well, he didn’t have to go. And I understand that the—he must have been a—
JST: He wanted to go.
EAV: …a top-hole guy. He never had a—
JST: Well, when we got this vector, the first plane we saw—the first one that we shot down, he was in my four-plane—he was leading the other section of the four planes. And I waved him back when I was vectored out. And he [unintelligible 00:47:42] and shook his head. And I waved him back again. And I was the skipper, and he had to obey. And so he went back. Because I knew that if there was one snooper out there, there’d be another one somewhere else. But he turned around and went back over to the ship like a good boy. But, you see, when he got the chance that afternoon, he was probably thinking about that. He missed one chance in the morning, and I wouldn’t let him have it. [laughs] And he really was ready. He was eager. He was a real tiger.
00:48:18
EAV: Well, I understand that he was a fine gentleman.
JST: He was.
EAV: Excuse me, sir. Do you want a match? 22
JST: Very soft-spoken. No, I have one. I do this often because—just hold it for a while.
EAV: Well, Admiral—
JST: He was very soft-spoken, not a—just the opposite of a loudmouth. He really was calm and—
EAV: [unintelligible 00:48:40]
JST: Yeah, and a very nice—very, very nice person. And—but very interested in every single thing he could learn. And he had this—already equipped with a tremendous ability to acquire skill and information.
[Differences with current-day fighter pilots]
EAV: Admiral, on the—do you think that today’s successful fighter pilot—and again, sir, I— you know, I—as I say, you are my idol. But will today’s successful fighter pilot enjoy the times that we had and the excitement that we had, if he doesn’t see the adversary? I mean, is it there? I don’t know.
JST: I think so. I have tried to keep in close touch with the fighter pilots who are fighting out in Vietnam as much as I can.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: Last week, I got a briefing aboard Admiral Malcolm Cagle’s flagship, Air Group— Carrier Division One—Commander, Carrier Division One—and had lunch with him and got a briefing. Well, according to him, those fighter pilots out there are just as eager as he’s ever seen or anyone else, according to him. I think they have the same sort of excitement, and I think they’re the same kind of tigers. They don’t have as many targets as we had, and even ones that— the fact that one of their squadron mates or one of their friends has shot down a MiG, this gives them a tremendous lift. And they’d do anything to get a flight if they thought—
EAV: They would be there.
JST: …there’d be a chance to tangle with one. I gather sometimes they even offer each other bribes—”Let me take this flight”—when they have a feeling or have information that maybe this is going to be the time they can tangle with a—with the MiGs.
EAV: Yes, sir.
00:51:42 23
JST: So there’s certainly no lack of morale. I think it’s different in that they are—
EAV: Well, no, sir. I didn’t mean morale. But, I mean, will they—well, just like the picture with you and Butch flying there with your—I mean, when you were the honcho at [unintelligible 00:52:02]. You were up dogfighting and people looking back over the ground upside down. They won’t get this [unintelligible 00:52:09] like we had, which spurred me on to six years of [unintelligible 00:52:15] be a naval aviator.
JST: I’m not sure I understand, really, [unintelligible 00:52:22] the question.
EAV: Well, the old days where we had—well, like you used to take your people up as gunnery officer and skipper and tangle with them.
JST: Yeah.
EAV: I mean, those days are gone for the most part. Now, I understand they’re starting a little dogfighting, but you know how it was when—
JST: Yeah.
EAV: …when Joe Clifton was my guy—
JST: Yeah, yeah.
EAV: …and in Miami and [unintelligible 00:52:54]. Oh, boy, he used to call across the hangar and—
JST: Yeah, I don’t know that they—I don’t believe they do the same things we did.
EAV: But the feeling that we—the excitement that we had [unintelligible 00:53:12]—
JST: Oh, absolutely. I mean—
EAV: F3F.
JST: Yeah.
EAV: F3F-2.
[Gunnery training and proficiency]
JST: Competition within a squadron was tremendous, and yet, once you did an exercise against another squadron, it was like a band of brothers. They were— 24
EAV: I imagine when that camera film was there, they were all there looking at the—you know, who was where and—
JST: This is true. I used to—in the first place, there was always an umpire, you know, from a different squadron when the two squadrons were competing, say, in camera gunnery. And the umpire, after the film was all collected and any possible seconds or two discrepancy in the clock is fixed, he would sit in a darkroom with both squadrons, and he would—and they would flash these various frames of all the camera gun film on the screen. And he would determine—he’d say, “Miss, miss, miss, hit, hit, hit, miss.” And at any time—[unintelligible 00:54:29], that at any time, the—either one of the squadrons wanted to contest this, then they’d stop that frame and take some straight rulers and measure it out, blow up the picture, and really find out did he get a hit. And this was the process. It usually took all day long. You’d come out of that darkroom dripping wet from all the—
EAV: Well, [unintelligible 00:54:53]—how were you able to maintain an E in all the planes you—it was just knowing the—know what it could do and—
00:55:03
JST: I think so. You see, we were professionals before the war, you remember.
EAV: Yes, sir.
JST: And we stayed in one job longer than they do now, and we got to know the airplane real well. And of course, I inherited an ability to teach, and I think I can teach somebody something that I’m tremendously interested in, especially if they’re interested. And I think this is a combination of the student—
EAV: But you always made that E. You always got an “Excellent” in any plane you—
JST: That’s right. That’s right. Oh, it would have killed me if I hadn’t. [laughs] Maybe literally.
EAV: No, but it was just—I—well, I—we—I searched the records.
JST: You know, I hadn’t thought about that, but it’s true.
EAV: I searched the records—
JST: I don’t think I’ve been in a squadron that I hadn’t gotten an E on my—
EAV: …I don’t think there’s another—there’s no other naval aviator that has ever done that, sir.
JST: Well, I don’t know about that. 25
EAV: Well, I checked it and—but you were the only one in and how you can master—
00:56:10
JST: This was so in the [unintelligible 00:56:12] and VP and the other—well, the fighter squadrons I was in. Well, you—
[Purpose of the interview and the importance of training]
EAV: I hate to bring up the ghost, but gosh darn it, I don’t—you know, if we can bring a little bit out that the people of today know that what has built, where they’re going, and the youth, I think we will have served their purpose.
JST: I believe that this digging out the information the way you are and getting it before the young men in this country should do something for them. I’ve noticed that books that are written nowadays on the subject are—if they’re well-written and they realize that they’re documented, that it’s all true, I believe it will do something for the youngsters
EAV: Well, of course, what we’re doing, Admiral, is that it’s the story that’s told. Now, my questions and, I mean—and everything flows as if you were telling the story. And I’ll have this—the first phase over to you for your approval, but it’s to show that, by gosh, you were out with your dad when you were—you couldn’t hold a 12-gauge, and you worked up, and by George, you were there. I mean, nothing came easy. Yes, I mean, we hear this all the time. “Well, this particular guy, it was the right time and the right place.” But he knew how to handle himself at the right time and at the right place. There are [unintelligible 00:58:16]—
JST: Well, there’s a matter of getting ready. I used to talk to my wife about this and—
EAV: But didn’t you even use to sit in your room and think—
JST: Oh, yes.
EAV: As I recall—Admiral, believe me, you were the—
JST: Time and time again.
EAV: …didn’t you—I mean, someone’s shooting. I see tracers going this way, and I duck that way and—
JST: Yeah, yeah. This is true. And it—if you—you’re just living the—
EAV: And you have to. 26
JST: You have to.
EAV: Everything is automatic. I mean, you forget all the training, and this is—
JST: Yeah. But it’s become ingrained in you. That’s what you want, so that the preparation, once you get—sure, it’s fortunate when we were in the right place at the right time to have an opportunity to show what we’ve been training for years for and working real hard.
EAV: Yes, sir.
[Stories about family members]
JST: My wife often—she’d hear somebody say, “Well, boy, Jimmy [unintelligible 00:59:15] sure was lucky.” And she rears up. She says, “Look. He worked hard enough to get what he did.”
EAV: [unintelligible 00:59:23]
00:59:24
JST: “He worked.” And then she’d help. She let me—on one—often, when I was working with these matches on the desk, it got to be after 12:00, and she said, “Jimmy, don’t you have to fly tomorrow?” That’s all she’d say. I said, “Yeah. I’m going to—”
EAV: I guess it was about five years ago. I recall one statement your son made when a neighbor came in and he asked what—I don’t know where—“What squadron does he have, Dad,” or something like that?
JST: Who?
EAV: Your son asked, “What squadron—”
JST: Oh. [laughs]
EAV: Believe me, I don’t go into these things loosely.
JST: Yeah. Yeah.
EAV: I believe that’s the—
JST: A visitor came to see us. It was a civilian. And when he left, my—he was about—my young son was about three or four years old. And—well, I don’t know what—I don’t know old he was. He was under six. Maybe he was five. And when he left, he said, “Daddy, what squadron is he in?” And I said, “He’s not in a squadron.” “Well, what does he do?” Is there anything else to do in the world except be in a squadron? “What does he do?” 27
EAV: Admiral, we have some sandwiches here.
[background conversation about food]
EAV: We have everything going, sir. But, you know, it’s so—if we can get across to the youth. Now, when I took this thing on, sir, it was all washed up and I decided, “Well, by gosh, it’s going to be done.”
01:01:19
JST: Hm-hmm [affirmative]. It’s a—I really admire you. It’s a tremendous job. It’s difficult and especially since you’re determined to get it right.
EAV: Well, it takes about 40 hours—
JST: It takes a tremendous amount of digging and—
EAV: But it’s going to be good.
JST: Well, it ought to be. And I know it will. I—
[First encounter with Japanese “Betty” aircraft]
EAV: Admiral, you know, one thing that even Morrison put, that they were Kates. They were all Betties that came over, and Morrison’s book had Kates coming over.
JST: I know it, and I—
EAV: I don’t know where—
JST: I don’t understand that. I’ll tell you what. In our little enemy recognition folder, they had these Japanese planes listed. There was no such thing as a Betty in the book. And when I said they weren’t Kates, they weren’t any airplane that’s in this book—I mentioned this, and apparently it got—my remark wasn’t heard or heeded. And they sent the dispatch in saying what kind of airplanes they were, which was wrong.
When I found this—when I discovered this, I had all my pilots draw—sketch on a piece of paper, one—any part of the airplane that he had vividly fixed in his mind. The exact contour, the shape of the tail, the wing, what—where the guns were, and the shape of everything. And do you know, when we put all those together, a composite, they [unintelligible 01:03:09] it out and it— and you—we later had a picture of the airplane, the Betties, and you could just lay it right over it, and it was very good, hardly any difference. I knew it wasn’t a Kate or any other patrol type because it had a 20-millimeter cannon in their tails. And the nose was a different—it had kind of 28
a moose nose. And everything about it, I remember vividly. I remember it to this day. I can draw one. And so did all the other pilots that got—that shot at them and got close.
EAV: Admiral, what do you—
JST: So this was—these errors just creep in because people can’t believe something new.
EAV: Well, he is a surface type, primarily, and he treats aviation like it was—
JST: Yeah. He had a lot of other errors and—but he didn’t—
EAV: Well, the Owens and Stanley [Owen Stanley Range] penetration, sir, we lost one plane out of 104, I understand.
JST: Hmm?
EAV: The Owen and Stanley, the Lae raid?
JST: Yeah.
EAV: Butch shot down a plane that day? We have him shooting down a plane that day.
JST: In what battle?
EAV: Oh, March 10th, 1942.
JST: Oh, hmm. Yes. February the 24th or the 26th is when he [unintelligible 01:04:54]—
01:04:58
[END OF INTERVIEW]