Leyte Gulf - USS Natoma Bay CVE-62

he was in a strange place, so he reported to the air officer
on the bridge. "Sir, my name is Bowman, from the Manila Bay.
I've just made a torpedo drop on a heavy cruiser and I guess
I got a bit excited and landed here by mistake. As soon as
you can catapult me off, I'll go back to the Manila Bay."
The air officer patted him on the shoulder and said "Don't
let it worry you, Mr. Bowman. Go on down to the wardroom and
get a cup of coffee and a slice of pie. We have one extra
torpedo and no torpedo plane. While you're eating we'll just
load you up and send you out again." And they did. From then
on that fellow was known as "Two-Torp Bowman." I saw him in
San Diego after our cruise. The Navy had a policy of letting
a pilot choose his type of plane for his second war cruise,
and I asked Two-Torp - "Are you going out again in
torpeckers?" "Hell, no," he replied. "I'm in something safe
now; I'm a carrier night-fighter."
During the battle the flight decks of some of the northern
carriers had been badly shot up, and a couple of jeeps were
sunk, so Admiral Sprague asked for permission, and of course
received it, to land some of his planes on our ships. As the
first one came in the captain told me to go down and find
out who the pilot was and what he had been doing. Naturally,
everybody wanted all the information he could get. So I went
down to the flight deck just as the pilot was coming off the
wing of his plane. I was just about to ask him his name when
he said to me: "Aren't you Ham Lokey, of Atlanta?" I said I
was and he said - "You swore me in as an aviation cadet at
the selection board in Atlanta in 1942 . . . but, damn your
soul, you never told me it was going to be like this out
here." All I could reply was - "Listen, if I had known it
was going to be like this out here, I never would have left
Atlanta myself. "
The Japs were faster than we were, and even though we were
running south as fast as we could, they were slowly
overtaking us. Finally, Admiral Stump got on the radio
himself and said - "To any pilots in the air . . .
expedite attack on battleships closing this
formation." At that time we had two torpedo planes left
in the air, flown by two ensigns named Gaienne and
Voltz. One of them was not yet old enough to vote.
48 Leyte Gulf