He took off with a half filled fuel tank because there was no time to finish loading it.
Ninety five minutes later he landed on a carrier that wasn't his, with no ammunition and an engine that died on the deck.
In between, he set an American record that has never been beaten.
This is the story of David McCampbell..🧵1/4
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David McCampbell graduated from Annapolis in 1933 and was immediately discharged, because the Depression meant the Navy could not afford to commission everyone in his class. They took him back a year later. He got his wings in 1938.
For a long stretch of the war he was not a fighter pilot at all. He served as a Landing Signal Officer aboard USS Wasp, standing on a platform at the back of the flight deck with a paddle in each hand, guiding other men down. He was aboard when Wasp was torpedoed and sunk in 1942.
He entered combat in May 1944, leading a fighter sweep over Marcus Island. He was 34 years old, considerably older than most of the men he flew with.
By November it was over. Everything he is remembered for happened in between.
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He commanded Air Group 15 aboard USS Essex, and they became known as the Fabled Fifteen.
In seven months and more than 20,000 hours of operations, they destroyed more enemy aircraft and sank more enemy shipping than any other air group in the Pacific war. 315 aircraft shot down. Another 348 destroyed on the ground. Nearly 300,000 tons of shipping sunk and over half a million tons more damaged. Among the ships they helped put on the bottom were Musashi, one of the two largest battleships ever built, and Zuikaku, the last surviving carrier from the attack on Pearl Harbor.
McCampbell led from the front. On 19 June 1944, during the Marianas Turkey Shoot, he shot down five Japanese dive bombers in one sortie, went up again that afternoon over Guam, and got two more. Seven in a single day.
Four months later came the day that made him.
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On 24 October 1944, at the opening of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, radar picked up a large Japanese formation heading for the American carriers. McCampbell launched in a hurry, and only once he was airborne realised he had taken off without a full load of fuel.
He and his wingman, Ensign Roy Rushing, found the enemy formation. His Medal of Honor citation puts it at around sixty aircraft.
There were two of them.
They climbed above the Japanese and worked them over from above, diving through the formation, coming back round, and diving through it again. McCampbell's action report recorded an hour and thirty-five minutes of combat. He was credited with nine confirmed, with two more probables. Rushing got six. Fifteen aircraft between two Hellcats.
Getting home was almost as difficult. They were fired on by their own fleet, and dropped to wave-top height jinking to avoid it. Then American fighters dived on them, mistaking them for the enemy, and only broke off at the last moment. Essex's deck was fouled, so McCampbell put down on the light carrier Langley, and the engine gave out on the deck.
His actions that day, along with those of 19 June, earned him the Medal of Honor. The very next day he led another strike as target coordinator, and earned the Navy Cross for it. Two consecutive days of fighting, and the two highest decorations the Navy can give.
He finished the war with 34 victories, the highest-scoring ace the United States Navy has ever produced, and the highest-scoring American ace to survive the war.
This was the story of David McCampbell.
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