Paul E. Drury
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The American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews The Museum of Flight Seattle, Washington Paul E. Drury Interview Date: circa 1990s 2 Abstract: Fighter ace Paul E. Drury discusses his military service with the United States Navy during World War II. He focuses in particular on his experiences during the Battle of Leyte Gulf on October 24, 1944. A member of Fighting Squadron 27 (VF-27) stationed aboard the USS Princeton (CVL-23), Drury was on the ship when it was attacked by a Japanese dive bomber. He describes his escape to the USS Irwin (DD-794), the fleet’s attempts to save the Princeton, and the ultimate decision to torpedo the damaged ship. Biography: Paul E. Drury was born on January 16, 1922 in Hubbard, Ohio. He joined the United States Navy in 1942 and graduated from flight training the following year. Drury served with Fighting Squadron 27 (VF-27) aboard the USS Princeton (CVL-23) and was on the ship when it was critically damaged during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. He survived the attack and continued serving with VF-27 when it re-deployed aboard the USS Independence (CVL-22). Drury left the military after the war and worked in the insurance and financial planning industries. He retired in 1985 and passed away in 2002. 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: Story written by Drury’s eight-year-old grandson .......................................................................... 4 Combat air patrol mission (morning of October 24, 1944) ............................................................ 4 Dive-bomber attack on the USS Princeton ..................................................................................... 6 Torpedoing the Princeton ............................................................................................................... 7 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 7 4 Paul E. Drury [START OF INTERVIEW] 00:00:00 [Story written by Drury’s eight-year-old grandson] PAUL E. DRURY: ….personal reference, I’d like to tell you about an incident involving my eight-year-old grandson. It seems he came home from school several weeks ago and surprised his mother and father, my son, with this nice booklet of short stories. The first one is entitled “My Grandpa was a Fighter in World War II.” [reading from booklet] “What he did in the war was fly planes off an aircraft carrier. His ship was called the Princeton. He was fighting against Japan. For the three years and eight months he flew, he shot down five Japanese planes.” Actually, it was six and a half. “One day in the war, his ship got attacked. The U.S. shot down all the planes, but one escaped and dropped lots of missiles, which blew up my grandpa’s ship. Kaboom. They were trying to stop the fire, but it wouldn’t go out. There was another ship besides his ship called the Birmingham. My grandpa had to jump like a cannonball off the side of his ship and swim over to the side of the other ship. Luckily, he was still alive. That’s the whole story and all I know. By Thomas Drury.” How do you like that? Tommy tells the story in a minute and a half that I’ve been allocated 20 minutes to tell you about. That’s children for you. They get right to the point. 00:01:46 [Combat air patrol mission (morning of October 24, 1944)] My most dramatic exposure to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, our subject this morning, came all wrapped up in one day: October 24, 1944, the longest day of my life. Actually, it started the day before. The Japanese show plan called for all-out attack on the American forces on October 24th, so they had observation planes out all night trying to locate our task force. Actually, I think they already had located us, and they were just trying to keep us in sight. Our task force, 38.3, was composed of: two large carriers, the Essex, flagship for Admiral Sherman, and the Lexington flagship for Admiral Marc Mitscher; two fast carriers, Princeton and Langley; two battleships, Massachusetts and South Dakota; four cruisers, Birmingham, Reno, Santa Fe, and Mobile; and 13 destroyers. Eight of us pilots were assigned CAP duty that day, the 24th. We were awakened about 4:00 a.m. It was dark when we took off. Because of the excitement on the flight deck, coupled with the darkness and then the haste to get us off because bogeys were already on the radar screen, I didn’t get to fly my regular plane, the Paoli Local, nor did I get to fly in my regular division. Instead, I found myself as wingman on Red Shirley [James A. “Red” Shirley], who was the 5 leading ace in our squadron. And normally I would have flown wing on Carl Brown, the second leading ace in our squadron. Well, no big deal, because I thought as soon as the sun came out I’d slide over to my regular spot in Carl Brown’s division, still maintaining radio silence, and signal for that pilot to get back over here to Red Shirley’s where he belonged. 00:04:15 However, that scenario never came to pass, because no sooner had we rendezvoused after takeoff than Red Shirley’s four of us were vectored out to a single bogey, which we took care of. And as soon as we got back on station, Carl Brown’s four were vectored out on another single, which turned out, incidentally, to be a friendly. I guess he had his identification turned off or it wasn’t working. Then we went out on another single and shot it down. And so it went. I never did have an opportunity to get back in my regular division. Then we got word from CIC to take a heading, all eight of us, both divisions. Well, that told us there was going to be more than one enemy plane this time. Our division of four planes had an altitude advantage over the other four since they were out on a vector last, and this meant that the four of us would get there first. By now the sun was out, and we were about 50 to 70 miles from our task force towards the Philippines. And I saw the sky become blackened with Japanese planes. My division later notified the ship, “Tallyho, 80 Jap planes.” And then he thoughtfully added, “Better send help.” To which the task force responded, “Affirmative.” And we were informed that the Princeton had 12 planes that could be launched, and the Essex would launch some also. 00:06:19 Our job on the CAP was to keep the enemy from getting close to the task force. So there wasn’t any choice as to what we were going to do. There was no real decision-making process. We just had to hope that Carl Brown’s four would hurry on up there and that the others just being launched could get here as quickly as they could. Academically, I knew it would take some time for the planes to be launched off of those carriers and to get up here, but I do recall taking some comfort in knowing that they were on the way. So the four of us went on into this Japanese formation. I think each one of the four of us got one plane each on that first pass. And then all hell broke loose. It was just one huge mass of airplanes trying to shoot each other down. I think the four of us shot down 15 Japanese planes. Of course, we had those two singles earlier in the morning, also. And we soon found ourselves out of ammunition and very low on fuel. 6 [Dive-bomber attack on the USS Princeton] We returned to base. I was one of the last pilots to land on the Princeton before the bomb hit. I was in the ready room being debriefed when the bomb hit. Dark black smoke poured in from the air vent. It was announced over the loudspeaker system that we had indeed been hit by a bomb, and the aviators were ordered to go to the flight deck and stand beside their airplanes. I guess originally the captain felt we might be able to launch. But the bomb went through the flight deck, and it exploded in the hangar deck. 00:08:35 Now, as fate would have it, our torpedo planes were on the hangar deck preparing for a raid themselves later on that morning. So there they were, fully fueled, fully armed, so that this one little old bomb that normally would have not done that much damage started to do its thing. The domino effect. The fires were intense, and our torpedo planes started to explode. One blew the aft elevator out. One near me, where I was standing beside my airplane, blew the forward elevator out, and this huge heavy thing just blew up and came down and came back down tilted on its side. And they’re heavy rascals. At this point, the captain ordered all personnel not associated with the fire control party to abandon ship. I climbed down a rope toward the water, unlike my grandson’s story about diving off like a cannonball. I like his story better than mine. The destroyer Irwin was parallel to the Princeton on the port side, so my goal was to swim over to her. I had been on the swimming team at the University of Pennsylvania before I enlisted in the Navy, but with all the excitement—the adrenaline had been flowing for some hours now—and drinking saltwater going through the waves was far different than I was used to in a swimming pool.