Evening star., 1943-04-24
Attack-and Vengeance!
The Story of Torpedo 8

lnVarlably mas a screen OF other
ships SO placed as to be able to use
the principles of converging fire
to set up wall of high explosives.
They don't actually have to aim.
They just set up the wall and let
the torpedo plane run head-on into
it.
Gun Defense Deadly.
Anyway, that's the theory. The
torpedo plane, coming in low, not
only sets itself up for fighter planes
to dive down on it, but sets itself
up for every gun on the task force
against it, including even the big
Pinch and 16-inch rifles. These
rifles can fire into the sea and
throw up splashes that can knock
the plane down just as well as a
shell itself Besides this, torpedo
planes, necessarily limited in num-
ber in the Pacific where there are
only such limited facilities as car
rlers or jungle airports available
for holding them, cannot diversity
their attack. They concentrate on
one ship in the force, which means
that the force can devote all its
flre-power to erecting only the one
wall OF explosives and does not nave
to thin its fire-power out over more
than the one wall.
AS its answer to these assaults
upon it by its target, the torpedo
plane Jinks and corkscrews. Jink-
ing is wabbling, Tipping motion and
corkscrewing is exactly what the
term implies-a twirling spiral, the
plane advancing by going up and
down In forward-moving circles.
This makes the torpedo pilot a very
busy man during his run. He knows
that, II his plane remains on even
keel fot as little as 20 seconds, the
enemy gunners will have as good a
bead on him as If he were the side
OF barn. But he has to keep his
plane on even keel to drop his tor
pedo. More than that, he knows
the ships officers will know he is
preparing to drop when he gets on
an even keel and that, when they see
him assume an even keel, they will
throw their ship out of his path.
So, assuming an even keel two or
three or even more times during a
run, is part of the campaign by
which the pilot hopes to flabbergast
the target into maneuvering itself
into its own grave
And there the torpedo pilot sits,
throwing his plane around with both
hands and both feet, his eyes fitting
from enemy plane to enemy ship to
target to waves to altimeter to
speedometer, his brain racing
through the ARITHMETIC of destruc-
ton and the arithmetic of conserva-
ton and struggling with fractions
and with the immense complications
OF the arithmetical laws of prob
abilities, and with all his reflexes
working at once, thrusting past,
around and through each other. like
the notes OF some terrible symphony,
an unWritten, unmemorizable, un-
learnable one that he must conduct
with the utmost precision and with
utter fawlessness, knowing well that
one flaw will kill him.
In the climax, when his massive
task begins and he launches himself
upon 1t, he finds himself confronted
with a problem that makes all
others look small in comparison.
Like all soldiers in battle, he must
suspend his imagination or find his
mind running riot and becoming in
capable. But, unlike most men in
battle, he must keep his mind busy
with and think intensively about
exactly those things most calculated
to galvanize his imagination. He
must figure out, for instance, they
are shooting at me there now and
Will shoot at me here next, so I will
go right where the last shot landed"
and then stop his mind from figuring
out the rest of the problem-what
would happen if his figuring was
false. To do this, to work the mind
frsntically and yet keep it in tight
rein, to make it lunge from problem
to problem with fierce recklessness
but with iron-bound precision, can
not be taught by any one or learned
by any one or acquired through luck
or accident or hard work. Doing it
involves the whole sum of a mans
personality which, in turn, is the
sum of all that he is and when a
torpedo pilot goes in to deliver his
torpedo he is putting his whole self
on the line and asking it to come
through for him. Some of the arith-
metlc in the situation is for him
and some against him, some of the
machinery is for him and some
against him, but when the kind of
person he is is against him that's
the end Of the story He is living
his last moment.
(To be continued.)
tCopyrisht, 1a43. by the North American
Newspaper Alliance, 1nc)