George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

February 6, 1944, and on March 25, 1944 the San Jacinto left for San Diego by way of
the Panama Canal. The San Jacinto reached Pearl harbor on April 20, 1944, and was
assigned to Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's Task Force 58/38, a group of fast carriers, on
May 2, 1944.
In June Bush's ship joined battle with Japanese forces in the Marianas archpelago. Here
Bush flew his first combat missions. On June 17, a loss of oil pressure forced Bush to
make an emergency landing at sea. Bush, along with his two crewmembers, gunner Leo
Nadeau and radioman-tail gunner John L. Delaney, were picked up by a US destroyer
after some hours in the water. Bush's first Avenger, named by him the Barbara, was lost.
During July, 1944 Bush took part in thirteen air strikes, many in connection with the US
marines landing on Guam. In August Bush's ship proceeded to the area of Iwo Jima and
Chichi Jima in the Bonin Islands for a new round of sorties.
On September 2, 1944, Bush and three other Avenger pilots, escorted by Hellcat fighter
planes, were directed to attack a radio transmitter on Chichi Jima. Planes from the USS
Enterprise would also join in the attack. On this mission Bush's rear-seat gunner would
not be the usual Leo Nadeau, but rather Lt. (jg) William Gardner "Ted" White, the
squadron ordnance officer of VT-51, already a Yale graduate and already a member of
Skull and Bones. White's father had been a classmate of Prescott Bush. White took his
place in the rear-facing machine gun turret of Bush's TBM Avenger, the Barbara II. The
radioman-gunner was John L. Delaney, a regular member of Bush's crew.
What happened in the skies of Chichi Jima that day is a matter of lively controversy.
Bush has presented several differing versions of his own story. In his campaign
autobiography published in 1987 Bush gives the following account:
The flak was the heaviest I'd ever flown into. The Japanese were ready and waiting: their
antiaircraft guns were set up to nail us as we pushed into our dives. By the time VT-51 was ready
to go in, the sky was thick with angry black clouds of exploding antiaircraft fire.
Don Melvin led the way, scoring hits on a radio tower. I followed, going into a thirty-five degree
dive, an angle of attack that sounds shallow but in an Avenger felt as if you were headed straight
down. The target map was strapped to my knee, and as I started into my dive, I'd already spotted
the target area. Coming in, I was aware of black splotches of gunfire all around.
Suddenly there was a jolt, as if a massive fist had crunched into the belly of the plane. Smoke
poured into the cockpit, and I could see flames rippling across the crease of the wing, edging
towards the fuel tanks. I stayed with the dive, homed in on the target, unloaded our four 500pound
bombs, and pulled away, heading for the sea. Once over water, I leveled off and told
Delaney and White to bail out, turning the plane to starboard to take the slipstream off the door
near Delaney's station.
Up to that point, except for the sting of dense smoke blurring my vision, I was in fair shape. But
when I went to make my jump, trouble came in pairs. [fn 2]
In this account, there is no more mention of White and Delaney until Bush hit the water
and began looking around for them. Bush says that it was only after having been rescued