The American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews The Museum of Flight Seattle, Washington

Paul E. Drury

Interview Date: circa 1990s

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Abstract: Fighter ace Paul E. Drury discusses his military service with the during World War II. He focuses in particular on his experiences during the Battle of 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 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 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

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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 . 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 , 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 , Massachusetts and South Dakota; four , Birmingham, Reno, Santa Fe, and Mobile; and 13 .

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 . 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 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. The Irwin had a cargo net over the side, and I was not too ashamed to accept the helping hands of some of their wonderful crew members to get up those final steps of that cargo net and to be literally, figuratively, tossed over the top and onto the deck of the Irwin.

00:11:02

I was completely exhausted, and I must have fallen asleep because I was rudely awakened by the sound of general quarters. I thought it was the next morning, but apparently it was only about an hour later. It was another Japanese plane that got through, and I remember saying to myself, “I don’t think I’m up to a second sinking all in one day.” But general quarters was secured, and everything was okay for us on the Irwin, but not so for the Princeton. Because of that enemy plane, the Birmingham and the other ships that were helping put out the fires on the Princeton, they had to pull away to defend themselves against air attack just as they were about to get the fires on the Princeton under control. 7

By the time general quarters was over and the Birmingham was able to move back alongside the Princeton, the fires had once again gotten the upper hand. In fact, the biggest explosion of all occurred as the Birmingham was right up tight to the Princeton putting their hoses back on board, and they sustained enormous damage and enormous casualties. 241 members of their crew were killed; 412 were wounded. Just being a Boy Scout, trying to help the Princeton stay afloat. The Princeton herself had 114 deaths and 190 wounded. More lives were lost on the Birmingham and the Princeton that day than during the Battle of Midway.

[Torpedoing the Princeton]

Well, that was enough. The Irwin was ordered to torpedo the Princeton. Now, the Irwin’s normal complement of 300-plus was joined by 600 of us Princeton survivors that they had picked up. So to say she was overloaded was an understatement. In addition, our torpedo director had been damaged by banging against the Princeton earlier in the morning when she was trying to put out—help put out the fires. Nevertheless, the Irwin fired two torpedoes. One went wide. The other one ran erratically out, and then, to the shock of all of us standing there on the Irwin, did a 180-degree turn. And here was this porpoising missile coming back on a collision course directly towards us. The skipper of the Irwin ordered flank speed. He did some kind of maneuver, and that torpedo passed harmlessly behind us, just barely. And again, I thought to myself, “Boy, one sinking a day is—it’s enough.”

00:14:50

So this time the Reno was then ordered to move in and finish off the Princeton. I guess it must have been about 6:00 p.m. There was this tremendous explosion of dense, mushroom- shaped cloud of smoke, rose more than 1,000 feet. When the air had cleared enough to reveal the carrier’s position, there was no more Princeton. That was truly the longest day of my life.

[Conclusion]

I would like to take this opportunity to salute the men on the Princeton who stayed behind to fight the fires, and the men on the Birmingham and the men on the Irwin and others who unselfishly helped a friend in trouble. Those men are my heroes. They are, I think, the unsung heroes of the war. In closing, I’ll borrow an expression from my grandson’s short story. Let’s see. How did he say it? Oh, yeah. “Luckily, my grandpa was still alive.”

00:16:26

[END OF INTERVIEW]