Imperial Valley press., 1942-06-14
Ii. Leonard Moore
Outstanding Hero
OF Midway Battle

discovered that one wheel nau peer
shot off their plane. There were
nearly 500 bullet holes in the fuse
lagos and wings. Muri brought the
plane in for a crash landing None
of the crew had been wounded SER
iouSly.
The first-hand account was the
first disclosure to reach here that
Moore had been partially respons-
ible for the destruction of an air.
craft carrier-the biggest one lost
by the JapS in the battle Moore
attended school in El Centre, and
was an employe of the Post Press
newspapers.
The United Ptess dispatch detail
ing his feat revealed also that Sc
cretly trained torpedo plane crews
among them the El Centro man
were engaged in their first action
when they plunged torpedoes into
of the aircraft carriers.
They hurtled at more than six
miles a minute, propellers almost
brushing the waves, through a 20
mile gantlet of fire from enemy
warships and fighter planes to
reach their targets,
Four planes made the attack.
Pilots of the two that came back
told their story. These two put a
torpedo each into a giant 26,900 ton
carrier. One of the missing crews
torpedoed a smaller one. One plane
downed two Zero fighters.
Capt. James E. Collins. 26, Merid-
ian, Miss, and Lieut.. Muri were
the pilots.
We were 20 miles away when
We saw them" Collins said. 1T was
less than three minutes flying time
at the rate we We're going. We had
to look things over quick and make
up our minds what we were going
after.
CLOSE TO WATER
We were practically scooping up
sea water with our propellors when
We went over the horizon, hugging
the sea.
The Japs spotted us, probably
from carrier based fighters. They
were circling high above their fleet.
They opened up on US with every
thing that Shot lead. And they had
plenty to shot with
There were ships all over the
ocean, battle wagons, four carriers,
cruisers, light and heavy trans
ports. destroyers and auxiliaries, a
whole fleet. Three of the carriers
were together. One big one was by
itself.
Muir and l took our planes in
for a crack at the big one. It's fun
ny what you think about at a time
like that My only thought was
what hell of a shame it would be
to waste our tin fish on a decoy.
thought the big carrier might be a
decoy because it had less escort
ship protection than the others and
was off by itself But probably that
was because it was SO big it needed
more room to navigate.
RINGS OF SHIPS
MUIR and l went in from the
southwest. We headed straight in
through the fire. The deck guns of
the carrier and its escorts were
concentrating on us. The carrier
was in the middle 1t had several
rings of ships around it; it was like
a bulls eye in the middle of a tar
get.
The bigger ships were firing their
heavy batteries into the water TO
kick up big columns of spray. They
figured We would run into the COL
umns and crash.
lust as We closed in six Zero
fighters dived at us head on.
They were using every gun on
every ship to get US. They really
worked US over. I could hear the
bullets whanging through the plane.
The Zeros got one solid whack
but had TO pull out from their dives
to keep from crashing into the wa
ter. They didn't give US any more
trouble for moment.
The carrier was trying TO get
into position TO meet US head on.
TO give us as small a target as
possible. We raced in off the car
rier's bow. We banked around and
leVeled off just in time to get a
clean shot broadside from the min
Imum distance.
Muir and l let our torpedoes 90
at the same instant Then we part
ed company pulled my nose up
inst in time TO clear the carrier. I
headed for a large patch OF hazy
clouds. Both motors were wide open.
There was a whole flock of Zeros
On our tail to hurry lis along