October 29th, 1944
Simmons, John LT. USN
It's been twelve days since we've landed on the Island of Leyte, and almost four since we've seen any action. On the 25th, we saw a single jap plane on our tower radar. He was probably a scout, as we saw him circle over the base, probably radioing back information. Our ack-ack gunners took him down before we even got the chance to get airborne. I bought that gun's crew chief a few beers at the O'club afterwards. That's when we recieved the news that the St Lo had been lost. The loss of a carrier always stings deep inside me, ever since the Battle of the Coral sea, some two years ago. That was the last time I flew in combat.
On the morning of May 7th, 1942, I upped with VF-2 from our beloved carrier Lexington in our Wildcats. We were a great bunch of guys; me, Upton, Johnson, Brown, Smith, and Woods, our flight lead. A cocky group, but good at our profession: dogfighting. Anyways, we upped, and started our escort of the Avenger torpedo planes. We ran into the jap carrier groups, circled overhead, and watched the Avengers take down one of their CVs. We were wondering why there was so little opposition, but we got our answer two minutes later. VF-4, our sister squadron defending Yorktown, was practically begging for help, as an entire air group of Vals and Zekes were attacking. We hauled arse to get there, and engaged as soon as possible. I spotted a Val, manuvered to it's 6, and quickly took it down. Then, a Zeke was on my flight leader's tail, and got into position to take him down. He broke, and throttled back. I was now in close, too close. As i shot him up and tore off his tail, a 5" shell from our own ack-ack gunners exploded right in front of me. The jap, who was already going down, burst into a fireball. shrapnel punched into my engine, knocking it out. Even worse, a peice of shrapnel went into my left shoulder. Blacking out from pain and blood loss, i quickly ditched the plane into the water, 100 yards away from lexington. To my horror, the japs kept comming, and the Lexington was doomed. She went down, and I passed out.
three hours later, a US Destroyer picked me up. I was in bad shape, the doc said. Any more blood loss and I would have died. They fixed me up, and after about a year in rehabilitation classes, my arm was back to normal. I was transfered out of VF-2, into the Marine's VMF-211, since they were short handed. I now had to learn an entirely new plane; the F4U Corsair. At first, I thought it was going to be the end of me, but then I got the hang of it. The marines at first couldn't stop jeering at me; a Navy puke in a Marine Corps Squadron? But I think the've learned to respect me now.
So we're just sitting on standby, waiting for the big show to begin. Our GL has come down with malairia, so they might put me as GL for this battle. I cant wait to get back in the skies again, i've learned much since Coral, and when i fight the japs this time, it's going to be personal........
