Eugene Ralph Hanks (Part 1 of 2)

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

Interview Date: February 19, 1990

Abstract: In this two-part oral history, fighter ace Eugene Ralph Hanks discusses his military service with the United States Navy during World War II. In part one, he describes his experiences as a fighter pilot with Fighting Squadron 16 (VF-16) in the Pacific Theater. Special focus on a combat mission on November 23, 1943 in which Hanks scored several aerial victories against a formation of Japanese fighter aircraft. He also discusses incidents from his flight training and briefly describes his post-war assignments.

Sections of the interview may be difficult to hear due to background noise and spots of faint audio.

Biography:

Eugene Ralph Hanks was born on December 11, 1918 in Corning, California. He joined the United States Navy in 1941 and graduated from flight training the following year. A member of Fighting Squadron 16 (VF-16), Hanks served two combat tours in the Pacific Theater, one aboard the USS Lexington (CV-16) and one aboard the USS Randolph (CV-15). He remained in the military after the war and went on to command Joint Tactics Squadron 1 (JTS-1), Fighter Squadron 142 (VF-142), and Fighter Squadron 51 (VF-51). He also served as a test pilot and flew with the Blue Angels, the Navy’s flight demonstration squadron. Hanks retired in 1969 as a captain and passed away in 2014.

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

Missions in the Pacific Theater ...... 4

Combat Air Patrol (CAP) mission on November 23, 1943 ...... 5

Flight training at Quonset Point, Rhode Island ...... 6

Rest and relaxation in Hawaii ...... 7

Encounter with Japanese “Zero/Zeke” fighters ...... 8

Structural strength of the Grumman F6F Hellcat ...... 10

Postwar assignments ...... 10

Dogfight and aerial victories ...... 11

Eugene Ralph Hanks (Part 1 of 2)

[START OF INTERVIEW]

[Begin Side A]

00:00:00

[Introduction]

EUGENE RALPH HANKS: This is Ralph Hanks, [address in Mora, New Mexico]. The date is 19 February 1990. Eric, this is my account that you requested. I’ve researched some old diaries, logbooks, letters, so I think the dates I give you should be historically correct.

So here’s my account of what was certainly one of the most exciting periods in World War II for me. Although, as you can well imagine, 71 years, 30 as a pilot, has provided me a few more exciting days and a whole bunch of exceedingly close calls, which could make another story, perhaps a book, if you care to pursue it. Anyhow, I’m just most grateful to be here to tell these stories. I’ll be the first to admit that the overwhelming reason for my survival had to be pure luck. Although I learned early in the game that the harder you work at it, the more luck you seem to have.

00:01:38

[Missions in the Pacific Theater]

The day that I’m going to try to describe was a fighter pilot’s dream. It’s etched in my memory for 47 years. Probably easier to tell now. It was easier to execute then because it came as an unscheduled surprise. We didn’t have to study and sweat over target material for a week or so and go through the sleepless nights awaiting a predawn launch, as had been the case in our recent strikes on Wake and Mili Island and Tarawa. We were just flying what had been a routine combat air patrol—CAP, as we called them—as we had been doing for several days prior.

We departed Pearl Harbor on November 10, 1943, headed for the Marshall Islands, loaded with extra planes and gear, obviously prepared for action. We fully expected to meet the Jap fleet this time, and we flew routine patrols every day and studied the details of target assignments on Mili Island en route. Our ship was USS Lexington—Lexington II, that is. And our squadron was VF- 16, Pistol Packin’ Airedales. We’d just celebrated our first birthday on the 16th. We hit Mili Island on the 19th, 20th, and 22nd, all day, each day. The place was demolished. There was little or no aircraft opposition. As I recall, Cook Cleland shot down a Jap near Mili in his SBD. You may recall Cook Cleland went on to win the Thompson Trophy Race at Cleveland twice in his F2G Corsair after the war. I believe this took more guts and ability than the whole combat tour, in my opinion. 5

00:04:11

We lost two fighters in the second day at Mili: Nick Johnson and O’Callahan, both young ensigns. Another TBF went down. All crew members were—had bailed out okay. Our squadron cartoonist, Frank Schwarz, was also shot down by AA over Mili on the 22nd. He was seen in his life raft and later safely recovered. This generated some excellent cartoons.

[Combat Air Patrol (CAP) mission on November 23, 1943]

This was the routine—so this was the routine leading up to our big day. It was Tuesday, November 23rd, when we were launched from the Lex somewhere south of Tarawa. Beautiful day over a calm Pacific with just a few scattered cumulus clouds. Our team of four Hellcats joined quickly as we climbed to our assigned CAP station at about 12,000 feet over the ship. Each pilot gave me a thumbs-up signal as he slid into position in the usual finger-four formation. Ensign Seyfferle [Willian J. Seyfferle] on my wing, my right wing. Lieutenant JG Frank Fleming was second section leader. Number four, Ensign Tiger Rucinski [Edward “Tiger” Rucinski] on his wing.

Frank had been my close friend since Pensacola. He was a top gunner, and I was glad to have him on the team. He had been my wingman up until a few days ago, when our team leader, Jack—we’ll call him Jack G.—climaxed a series of poor leadership maneuvers by forgetting to safety his guns before landing and shot up the flight deck. Was confined to his room until he could be transferred from the squadron. Our skipper, Paul Buie, gave the team to a lowly JG, me, and I was lucky enough to keep it through two combat tours until V-J Day.

00:06:26

So upon this particular day, I was feeling just great. All the butterflies of earlier carrier operations thousands of miles from friendly shores were gone. And we had completed several island raids, been shot at and shot up. Numerous aircraft—we’d shot up numerous aircraft on the ground, but had yet to see an enemy aircraft in the air. But we were ready. We really felt we could take on the Japs this time. Skipper’s flight could be seen just several miles ahead of me. He had just received orders from our flight director on the Lex to take Angels 12, the same CAP station I had been assigned. So I headed across the large climbing circle to make a smart join-up with him. My team was now in tight formation, and I was aiming to give the Old Man a good impression, for I was sure that my first impression with him back at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, where VF-16 formed up, had been a bad one. I’ll tell you about that.

[Flight training at Quonset Point, Rhode Island]

About 20 new ensigns reported to their first fighter squadron to learn, but nearly all of their senior officers had no fighter experience and, we felt, no training for the job at all. They were P- boat pilots, floatplane jockeys, desk jockeys fresh from Washington jobs and elsewhere. We were sick about it. To this day, I can’t see why the Navy planners couldn’t have provided some type of refresher training for those types, as they do today where every new CO is a recent graduate of an in-type training course, carrier-qualified and so on.

Anyhow, these guys, our leaders, were muddling through, blowing tires, ground looping F4Fs, flubbing into rainstorms, getting lost, and all the things that most of the ensigns had been carefully taught not to do. XO later led half the squadron into a thunderstorm, killing my roommate and soundly confirming our doubts.

00:09:03

Furthermore, our instructors, through operational training, had been combat-experienced pilots who could demonstrate tactics and techniques, fighter sweeps, and air-to-air combat. Three of those instructors, I recall, were Frank Lawlor, Fritz Wolf, Lieutenant Bacon [Noel Bacon]. All had been ex-Fighting Tigers—Flying Tigers, China. I’m really forever grateful to those guys who showed us how and gave us the confidence we much needed then.

This outfit, VF-16—the Pistol Packin’ Airedales, organize and fight the war—had no tactical organization, no regular teams, no training syllabus, no flight or radio discipline. Most of them had never been aboard a carrier. [faint audio] We’d all just been carrier-qualified in Norfolk before coming to the squadron. And here, we were simply assigned an airplane twice a day to go fly. We arranged dogfights with each other, we flew under bridges, flew open-air theaters, flew to New York and Boston to watch our carrier, the new Lex, which was [unintelligible 00:10:44] shipyard at that time, under construction. Pick dogfights with the Army P-47 squadron nearby. [Unintelligible 00:10:55] senior boys ran one clean into the ground in a big snowstorm.

00:11:04

Anyway, the training program was simply embarrassing, since most of the ensigns in this outfit had been flying together all through training, knew about what to expect from each other. We felt there had to be a better way. So we talked together and those of us who had trained together in tactics, air-to-air combat, in Miami to Jacksonville and Norfolk, we decided to ask the XO and skipper to organize tactical teams, putting those of us who had trained together into teams of three, with the suggestion that the skipper and exec choose leaders for each team—senior officers. Do all of our formation work and tactics and gunnery and so on together. So the same pilots would fly together most of the time. It seemed like a reasonable idea, even to us green- 7

assed ensigns, at that time. Though we knew nothing of the ways of the Navy among the blue school boys, and we were just Reserves.

So we typed up the plan—or suggestion. I was elected to present it to the skipper—actually, to the exec. The exec was not exactly a friendly, understanding type one might wish for. In fact, to a man, we already hated his guts. A month later, when he received orders to another squadron, a large contingent of JOs sang a farewell toast entitled, “We’ll be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal, You.” Why they weren’t court-martialed, I’ll never know. It even embarrassed me. I guess in wartime there were more important matters to tend.

00:13:04

Anyhow, the XO took the proposed plan with some obvious skepticism and a scowl, saying he’d talk to the captain about that point. Yeah, the exec said he’d talk to the captain. About that point, I felt I had not explained the idea very well. The next morning, standing at attention before the CO, I was damn sure that I hadn’t explained it at all. [Unintelligible 00:13:38] to get a second chance. The skipper ripped me four ways from Sunday. I was sure that I’d become a seaman second any minute. The final words, as I recall, were, “I will not tolerate any prima donnas in this outfit. Is that clear to you, Ensign Hanks?” I attempted to apologize, stumbled over my tongue, and I asked if my intentions had perhaps been misunderstood. “Understood? If you understood my last sentence, Ensign Hanks, that will be understanding enough. Is that clear?” “Yes, sir. Is that all, sir?” Well, that little encounter taught Ensign Hanks, USNR, to steer clear of Lieutenant Commander Buie for a long time.

I did get some consolation, however, a few days later. Skipper gave me a tactical organization chart to be enlarged and posted in the ready room. The assignments were surprisingly similar to what we had proposed. So all of this was on my mind as we executed that, quote, perfect, unquote, join-up.

00:15:04

[Rest and relaxation in Hawaii]

The Airedales were at war, and war was a bowl of cherries. We had been enjoying a truly country club life in Hawaii. If one had to go to war, this was the way to go. Crazy statement, maybe, and surely guys who were shot down or shot through or shot up and those who seemed to be struggling just to get along, just to survive, certainly didn’t agree with me. But that’s what I thought at this time. I’m almost ashamed to reveal it. We were having a week or two at sea, and then one or two weeks at Kaneohe Air Station in Hawaii, which is the garden spot of the Pacific. Officers’ mess chief the best chef—

00:16:10 8

[End Side A]

[Begin Side B]

00:00:00

Sorry, Eric. I’m having a little trouble deciphering my own notes here. It’s a good thing I didn’t mail it to you in the rough. What I was trying to say back there was the officers’ mess chef must have come directly from the Waldorf Hotel. We had tropical fruit displays at breakfast and brunch buffets. Picture-perfect setting for an Oak Club with adjoining tennis courts and a view of the surf. We played tennis with O’Neill, Randy Gregson, Sedgman, and Kramer, all big names in tennis then and still are today. These pros gave exhibition matches for us poor, war-stricken Naval aviators and their crews. We could sail out and strike another Jap island for a week, then back to Hawaii, stay at the Chris Holmes Rest Home with every luxury the mansion could provide, including tea parties, girls, and a lovely recreation director, Mrs. [Galt?].