An interesting article about a WWII pilot & what he did.
Legendary WWII pilot defeated German and Japanese foes
ACE PLAYED ROLE WHEN SAN DIEGO BECAME NAVAL AVIATION “CENTER OF UNIVERSE”
Dean “Diz” Laird is a legend, the only known U.S. Navy ace to shoot down both German and Japanese planes during World War II. Despite close calls — once, his shot-up plane skidded across an aircraft carrier’s flight deck — Diz possessed a fighter pilot’s essential attribute: Supreme self-confidence.
“It never entered my mind that I would ever get shot down,” he said. “I thought I was too good.”
Now a Coronado resident, this Northern California native was a bit player in global drama. He saw the transformation of the Navy and its tactics, a transformation that also changed the service’s key West Coast port.
“In World War II, the aircraft carrier rapidly emerged as the dominant ship type,” noted Karl Zingheim, staff historian at the Midway Museum. “And San Diego was the center of the universe for U.S. naval aviation.”
San Diego retains that role. While World War II ended nearly 70 years ago and its veterans now account for only three out of every 1,000 San Diego County residents, we live in a region Laird helped shape. The pilot witnessed the expansion of North Island and Miramar. He saw the founding of two local groups honoring military fliers, the Distinguished Flying Cross Society and the Tailhook Association. And this ace is among the thousands who initially viewed San Diego as a duty station and eventually saw it as home.
Laird, 91, remembers it all: Air-to-air combat, storms at sea, the sudden deaths of comrades. What he doesn’t remember is being frightened.
“I had complete faith in my ability,” he said.
Bad timing?
One day in December 1944, eight Hellcat dive bombers dropped through anti-aircraft fire to strafe Japanese positions on the Philippines. The squadron’s commanding officer may have been the first casualty; his plane disappeared in a fireball. Laird saw the explosion, then was jolted by another. His rudders were gone. Ditto, his radio.
He limped 250 miles across the Pacific to the U.S. fleet, but his problems mounted. His landing gear refused to drop and, as Laird slowed to belly flop on the deck of the carrier Essex, the engine’s torque pulled him left. He banked in the opposite direction, straightening at the last moment.
“I made one of my sterling landings,” Laird joked, “and put on the brakes. Nothing happened.”
He throttled back, allowing the deck crew to slip chocks under his wheels and stop the plane. Hanging from the Hellcat’s fuselage was a rat’s nest of shredded cables and hydraulic lines.
Laird walked away unscathed — just another mission for the man the American Combat Airman Hall of Fame called “the quintessential fighter pilot.”
Growing up in rural Placer County, 20 miles east of Sacramento, Laird wanted to follow in the contrail of his older brother, an Army Air Corps pilot. But a friend persuaded the lean college baseball player with 20/10 vision to join the Navy. The fleet’s long-reigning kings — battleships — were being overthrown by a mighty warship that had debuted at the close of World War I. By the time Laird won his flying wings in August 1942, American aircraft carriers were leading task forces in the Pacific and Atlantic.
“I wanted to go to the Pacific,” Laird said. “That appeared to me to be where the Navy’s air war was.”
But the Navy assigned him to the carrier Ranger, supporting the British fleet in Scotland. The young pilot, already disappointed, was soon nauseous. Seasick on the tossing North Atlantic, Laird only felt well when he was aloft. He volunteered for mission after mission.
On Oct. 4, 1943, flying through rain squalls near the Orkney Islands, Laird thought he saw a shadow flit behind a cloud. The pilot and his section leader pounced, catching a German fighter. This was Laird’s first kill — and a floatplane, ambushed later that day, became his second.
Two months later, Laird was transferred to the Pacific. As eager as he had been to duel Japanese pilots, he fretted about his timing.
“We were out there at a really rotten time for fighter pilots,” he said. Earlier battles “had destroyed so many Japanese aircraft, there were hardly any left to shoot at.”
But there were some. In November 1944, he shot down a Japanese fighter. In January 1945, another. On Feb. 17, 1945, two more.
Soon after, orders arrived sending him back to San Diego. He obeyed — under protest.
“I want to stay out here,” he insisted.
“You’re crazy!” his commanding officer replied.
Once again, the Navy ignored Laird’s wishes. But it did give him something special, a medal that unites fliers across all branches of the armed services with its singular recognition of aerial excellence.
The Distinguished Flying Cross.
The Society
Created by an act of Congress in 1926, the DFC is a four-bladed propeller symbolizing flight superimposed on a bronze cross symbolizing sacrifice. It hangs from a ribbon of red, white and blue.
One of the first recipients was Charles Lindbergh for flying solo across the Atlantic in May 1927. His plane, “The Spirit of St. Louis,” was built in San Diego.
Creators of the DFC, remembering the dogfight derring-do of World War I aces, always envisioned it would be awarded not just to aviation pioneers, but also to combat giants. World War II gave them the avenue.
Rudy Matz, who lives now in Poway, earned three crosses, one for shooting down four Japanese planes in a single day during 1944’s Battle of the Philippine Sea. Steve Pisanos, a Rancho Bernardo resident, shot down 10 German planes — making him a double ace — and has five DFCs.
Their stories are among dozens featured in a recent book, “On Heroic Wings,” co-authored by Cal State San Marcos professor Laura Wendling and published by the Distinguished Flying Cross Society, which is based in San Diego.
“Like any medal, the DFC really illuminates individuals who have gone above and beyond,” Wendling said. “What I realized very quickly in talking to them is how humble they are. Their families have this medal lying in a drawer and they have no idea what it stands for — that it honors people who made a difference in the history of the world.”
The society was created in the 1990s when a two-time cross recipient, Al Ciurczak, could not locate any organization dedicated to the medal. Like a lot of veterans, the pilots didn’t talk much about their service, and nobody kept track of the honorees. Even today, no one is quite sure how many of the medals have been awarded over the years.
Gradually, a database is being built up. The records are kept, appropriately enough, in an office next to Lindbergh Field. The society maintains a website, dfcsociety.net, hosts regular conferences and publishes a magazine.
“The kids today, a lot of them don’t know what these people did,” said Chuck Sweeney, the society president and a three-time DFC recipient from the Vietnam War. “This is a way to make sure the stories survive.”
Wrinkled hands
Laird’s 30-year Navy career took him from Pacific atolls to Brunswick, Maine. San Diego was a frequent stop, too, and his family settled in Coronado in 1958. Laird and his wife, Lorraine, raised three children here. Their oldest, Diane, died from cancer 25 years ago. Another daughter, Andrea, teaches recreation at California State University, East Bay. A son, Michael, is a golf pro in Memphis.
A year before retiring from the Navy, Laird burned through 60 days by logging 164 hours over Hawaii. Working as a stunt pilot, he led Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor — for the film “Tora! Tora! Tora!”
“I was the leader of a Japanese dive-bomber squadron,” said Laird. “It was a lot of fun. And the movie was better than most flying movies — at least they had real airplanes flying.”
After retiring with the rank of commander, Laird repaired aircraft components, managed Coronado’s golf course and led the Tailhook Society. Although present at the infamous Tailhook convention that resulted in dozens of accusations of sexual harassment against retired and active duty officers, Laird was not implicated in the scandal. Still involved in the group, he started its educational foundation. Last year, the society announced that members’ dependents would be eligible for a new scholarship, one named in Laird’s honor.
Laird is still slim and sharp, but age has taken its toll. He suffered a heart attack three years ago, and macular degeneration obstructs his vision. But sitting at home, the old pilot uses his wrinkled hands to re-create the details of aerial battles fought nearly seven decades ago. He remembers every twist and turn, every loop and dive.
The war “unified us to where just about everybody was on the same page,” he said. “There was only one main thing — that was to win the war.”
If this ushered in the era of the aircraft carrier, confirming San Diego’s central role in naval aviation, that doesn’t bother Dean “Diz” Laird.
Source:
http://www.nctimes.com/legendary-wwii-p ... 9682d.html
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