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Outnumbered American fighter pilots battle marauding Japanese airmen
to control the skies over a sweltering Pacific Island called Guadalcanal.
During a grueling 6 month slug (?)fest, their combat in the sky
will help decide the course of the Pacific War.
Through state of the art computer animation,
you're in the cockpit as America's rugged F4F Wildcats
face off against lethal Japanese Zero and Oscar fighters.
Experience the battle. Dissect the tactics.
Relive the dogfights of Guadalcanal.
August 30, 1942,
a formation of US Marine Corps F4F Wildcats
and Army P400 Air Cobras patronal the skies of Guadalcanal.
Their mission: stop Japanese bombers and fighters threatening
the American detail.
Leading the flight is Marine Captain John L. Smith
The P400s have no oxygen equipment and level off by 12,000 ft.
But Smith pushes his Wildcats above the slower and more vulnerable P400s.
Smith scans the sky for enemy aircraft but spots nothing.
Then his radio crackles to life.
Captain Smith receives a frantic radio call from one of the P400s
whose tally on(?) enemy fighters are inbound.
Japanese Zeros.
A swarm of more than 20 Zeros threaten
the Army Air Cobra from the rear.
The P400s are here.
The Zeros are here attacking the P400s from behind.
Smith and the Wildcats are here,
3,000 feet above.
The Zeros don't see them.
I wouldn't say they used P400s as a bait.
But the P400s normally would get in trouble
and the Marines would come down
and shoot Zeros off the tails of the 400s.
The Marines dive to rescue the P400s.
Captain Smith closes fast on a unsuspected Zero
and takes aim.
What they found is if they can aim
just after the canopy, towards the wing root
where the wings join the fuselage of Japanese Zero
That's right about the fuel tanks are.
If they can execute a direct hit at that point,
Japanese Zero immediately burns and oftentimes the wings fall off.
Catching the Zero in a shallow left turn,
he opens fire.
It's Smith's 6th kill of the war.
But there's no time to celebrate.
The skies are still filled with Zeros.
And Smith and his men are heading into 6 months of legendary dogfights,
battling for the most important location in the Pacific in 1942,
a green speck of land called Guadalcanal.
3 months earlier,
Allied reconnaissance discovered
that the Japanese were building an airfield on Guadalcanal,
a 90 mile long jungle island
at the southern end of the Solomon Island chain.
If the Japanese can control Guadalcanal,
they'll sever the vital supply line
from the US to the South Pacific.
Australia and New Zealand will be open to invasion and conquest.
The Allies have to act.
Depending upon who controlled that airstrip,
had an enormous effect
on Japanese and American fortunes in that area.
August 7 1942,
America launches its first
amphibious assault of WWII.
Over 11,000 US Marines storm ashore at Guadalcanal.
The marines quickly gain a foothold on the island.
By the 2nd day, they take the Japanese airstrip,
renaming it Henderson Field.
The Japanese bring in thousands of fresh troops to Guadalcanal
and attack the Americans relentlessly,
trying to drive them off the island.
The Marines fight off attacks
while desperately trying to prepare Henderson Field for operations.
Japanese tractors and equipment are commandeered
to improve the small, crushed coral runway.
Bomb damage is repaired,
and PSP, perforated steel planking
is hurriedly laid down.
After two weeks, they finish the airstrip
and fly in 19 F4F Wildcat fighters
and 12 SBD Dauntless dive bombers.
It was only because of the ability of the Americans
to place aircraft on Henderson Field
to protect the supply ships bringing in reinforcements
and supplies to the Marines on Guadalcanal
that the island could be held.
Because the Allied code name for Guadalcanal is "Cactus,"
Henderson Field becomes the home of the tiny Cactus Air Force,
at first consisting of just 43 pilots and ground crew.
The men of Henderson Field soon discover
it isn't just the enemy making their lives hell.
The island was a fly-infested, dirty, stinking,
blood-soaked damned island
that was just dangerous to even walk on the beaches
because there was so much unexploded ammunition around.
The pilots and ground crew live in mud-floored tents.
The latrine is a trench with a log seat,
and the bathtub is the Lunga River
--complete with crocodiles and leeches.
The flyers of the Cactus Air Force are outnumbered
and short on supplies.
Their fighters, the F4F Wildcat,
can't match the agility of the enemy Zero.
But a big advantage for the Cactus Air Force
is that they are commanded by a born leader in 27-year-old John Smith.
Smith's an aggressive dogfighter and skilled tactician.
He always preached and devised his tactics around
have to pay your strength, against the enemy's weakness.
And that is as true today
as it ever was since the first airplane ever flew in combat.
Now on August 30, 1942,
Captain John Smith and his men are protecting Guadalcanal
from approaching bombers and fighters.
In his eight days on the island, Smith has already scored five kills,
making him an ace. Today, he's racked up one more.
Then he spots another Zero below, breaking from a cloud.
The Zero is here. Smith is here, high above him.
He plans to use the Wildcat's diving speed to try and drop behind the Japanese plane.
Smith first rolls inverted, then dives.
This creates positive G-force instead of negative Gs.
If you roll on your back, pull aft on the stick,
and pull positive Gs
so you're pushed into your seat,
You're gonna be able to pull more Gs,
which means you can pull your nose downhill faster.
The maneuver works. Smith rolls back over...
then levels out behind the Zero...
and fires.
The Wildcat's 6 .50-caliber guns deliver 200 rounds in a 4-second burst.
White-hot, phosphorous-filled incendiary bullets ignite the Zero's fuel tank.
But as Smith arcs away from s second victim,
the predator becomes the prey.
A Japanese Zero closes in on Smith from dead ahead.
High above the green jungle canopy of Guadalcanal,
the planes converge at over 600 miles per hour.
the Zero opens up with his 20-millimeter cannon.
Smith answers with his 50 caliber machine guns.
It's basically a slugfest all the way to the merge.
Who's going to flinch first?
Or who's going to blow up first?
Both planes are taking hits.
But Smith's Wildcat has thicker armor, and he's withstanding the blows.
And then the overwhelming firepower of the Navy airplane cut this guy into ribbons.
He exploded. And then what Smith did is dump the nose over
very hard, very abruptly, and flew underneath the debris field and escaped.
The Zero has made a fatal error.
He fought the Wildcat's fight.
Built by Grumman Aircraft, the Wildcat is first flown in 1937.
The rugged plane features cockpit armor
and self-sealing fuel tanks.
These tanks are coated with layers of rubber
that expand and reseal if they're punctured.
The Wildcat faces the most famous of all Japanese aircraft,
the deadly Mitsubishi A6M3 Zero.
The lightweight Zero can out-turn and out-climb the Wildcat
--a lethal advantage in a dogfight.
But its thin armor protection and lack of self-sealing fuel tanks
means it can't survive a slugging match with the tougher Wildcat.
The Zero is faster, more maneuverable,
and can out-climb the Wildcat,
while the Grumman is tougher, more heavily armed, and can out-dive the Zero.
Wildcat pilots, in general, would want to
avoid the turning fight with the Zero.
That would not be their fight.
The Wildcat, with its six .50-cal machine guns,
heavy body armor, heavy armor around the engine cowling,
preferred head-on attacks, frontal attacks.
And it would just basically plow through that Zero.
The air battle of August 30 is a resounding victory for Smith and his pilots.
They shoot down 14 of the 22 attacking Zeros.
The Japanese bombers the Zeros were protecting
retreat before reaching Guadalcanal.
Believing the engagement is over,
Smith sets course for Henderson Field.
But there are two more deadly Zeros just ahead.
August 30, 1942. 3 weeks into the battle for Guadalcanal.
Japanese aircraft are on the attack.
Marine fighter pilot John L. Smith has killed three enemy Zeros.
Captain smith is RTB, returning to base from his mission,
thinking the mission's over,
and he gains tally of two Zeros
that have just strafed Henderson Field. So strafing his home.
So the natural pilot tendency-- What does he do?
He's going to roll in and attack those guys that just attacked his home.
Smith is outnumbered once again,
but he's high above the Zeros, and they haven't spotted him yet.
The Zeros are here.
Smith is here, 800 feet above the enemy.
He's hoping a steep diving turn will put him
on the Zeros' tail before they can react.
Smith rolls inverted and dives towards the enemy.
He levels out at six o'clock low,
below and behind the trailing Zero,
positioned perfectly for the kill.
The Zero takes evasive action. He breaks hard left.
But Smith has anticipated the move. He stays right with him,
raking the enemy with his .50-cals.
Cutting his speed and breaking back right,
the Japanese pilot hopes to make Smith overshoot.
But Smith chops power and stays in trail.
The Zero is directly in the sights of a Marine ace.
A final burst from Smith's Wildcat seals his fourth kill of the day.
It's a victory for Captain Smith and inspiration to his men.
He led by example.
He would be the first one to roll in on a Zero formation.
And his guys would follow him to the gates of hell because of that,
because they knew he was putting his tail on the line
every time.
Smith and the Cactus Air Force have delivered a staggering blow
in what is becoming a drawn-out brawl.
The American pilots can only fly by day.
They lack the radar and navigation aids that enable night fighting.
The Japanese Navy had perfected night fighting in the 1930s,
using powerful optics and range finders.
Crews were trained to work in total darkness.
The Guadalcanal campaign developed into this extraordinary situation
for the change of sea control every 12 hours.
The Americans controlled in daylight, thanks to their aircraft in Henderson Field.
But every time the sun went down, the Japanese ruled the waters off Guadalcanal.
After dark, the Japanese Navy controls "The Slot,"
a wide channel that runs from Guadalcanal to the Japanese base on Rabaul.
The Japanese supply ships arrive with such regularity
that the Marines nickname them "The Tokyo Express."
By early September, a month into the campaign,
the Japanese have landed over 20,000 new ground troops on Guadalcanal,
deployed against 23,000 U.S. Marines and Army soldiers.
The Allied forces advance slowly across the mountainous island.
But the Japanese launch large-scale counterattacks,
supported by air and naval bombardment.
While Japanese ground assaults can't stop
the pilots at Henderson Field,
constant air combat, primitive conditions and rampant disease take their toll.
They were constantly having to refurbish the airfield
in order to be able to operate out of it.
Constantly fending off attacks. They had malaria, dry rot.
Jungle conditions, which wreaks havoc on aircraft and maintenance.
Old hands like John L. Smith are eventually rotated out.
But before he leaves Guadalcanal,
Smith scores 19 kills and is awarded the Medal of Honor.
Many of the new Cactus Air Force pilots are green replacements,
like Marine Second Lieutenant Jefferson De Blanc.
The 21-year-old Cajun from Lockport, Louisiana
enters combat not long after his first flight in an F4F Wildcat.
I had less than 10 hours of flying time
in the fighter I was going to fight with against the Japanese.
January 31, 1943, 6 months into the battle for Guadalcanal,
Jeff De Blanc will get an accelerated course in air-to-air combat.
He's about to launch into one of the most famous dogfights of the campaign.
De Blanc leads a flight of 8 Wildcats escorting 12 SBD Dauntless dive bombers.
The Douglas SBD Dauntless is the Navy's frontline carrier-based dive bomber.
The plan is to attack Japanese supply ships heading for Guadalcanal.
The flight hopes to intercept the convoy 250 miles from Henderson Field.
You want to interdict that shipping as far away from the island as possible.
If the mission failed and shipping still existed, or you weren't able to get all the shipping,
you would have an opportunity for a re-attack. Basically fly home,
refuel, rearm, go back out, and try again.
The jungle conditions and makeshift maintenance facilities
have taken on their toll on the Wildcats.
Two planes radio they're having problems and want to turn back.
De Blanc protests.
I picked up the mike and said,
"Look, we need all the guns we can get up there and
protect these guys, or else they're going to be a lot of casualties."
De Blanc's plane is leaking fuel, but he's determined to hang in and protect the bombers.
He knows he's on a one-way trip.
So I said, "please do this." I said, "I'm not gonna make it back.
Get somebody to come into that area and look for me
floating around in a...a rubber raft.
'Cause I'll be there. The sharks'll be there with me, too.
So give me a break." That's all I said.
As they reach the target area,
the American SBD Dauntless dive bombers descend,
circling for targets.
Suddenly, 2 Japanese Pete floatplanes
dive down from high above on the slow, vulnerable SBDs.
De Blanc sees the floatplanes closing on the Dauntlesses
and rolls out to his left.
Staff Sergeant Jim Feliton follows.
They arc down to cut off the attack.
De Blanc opens the throttle, gaining on the two enemy fighters.
Then a brilliant stream of tracers rips out
from one of the Petes' rear gunners, screaming straight at him.
Jan 31st 1943,
6 months into the Guadalcanal campaign.
Marine Second Lieutenant Jefferson De Blanc
has been protecting American bombers
assigned to attack a Japanese supply convoy.
Now he's diving to save the bombers from two Japanese Pete floatplane fighters.
As he approaches, the Petes' lethal rear guns open fire.
In a float plane, the rear gunner is a naturally crack shot.
If you ever get floatplanes in your sight out there,
don't try to go up to them to shoot
because that rear gunner is murder, and he'll get you.
Although it's a biplane,
the Mitsubishi F1M Pete can more than hold its own in a fight.
It has an excellent turning radius
and is armed with two machine guns in the wings and
and a 7.7-mm tail gun.
Tracers stream past De Blanc's canopy.
He skids left and right
to avoid the fire coming from the nearest Japanese gunner.
He's using a lot of rudder and aileron
to basically slide his airplane back and forth
to try and not allow a steady bead by that tail gunner.
De Blanc carefully lines up on the Pete's tail and fires.
The heavy .50-caliber rounds tear through the floatplane.
Opening up his 1,200-horsepower Wildcat engine,
De Blanc swiftly closes on the second Pete.
His tracers rip into the Pete's fuel tanks.
The burst caught him dead center,
and his plane caught fire.
He--he exploded, actually.
De Blanc pulls skyward to resume his escort mission.
He spots a swarm of airplanes approaching fast.
They are Japanese Oscar fighters.
The Nakajima KI-43 Oscar
is a frontline fighter for the Japanese Army Air Force.
The Oscar is just as fast as the Wildcat and far more maneuverable.
But the Wildcat can take more punishment
and carries 6 machine guns to the Oscar's 2.
The Oscars bore in full throttle, bent on attacking the dive bombers.
But they have target fixation and don't spot De Blanc.
The target is the prize,
so you become focused on that prize.
You start to lose your peripheral vision
and your situational awareness around you.
De Blanc is here.
The Oscars are here, streaking above De Blanc.
De Blanc swings under the Oscars.
He goes to max RPM, pulls in below the enemy,
and fires at the lead.
One Oscar falls. He's wounded on fire,
but escapes.
The Oscar's wingman spirals up from the pack
to figure out what's happening.
De Blanc follows and swings on to his tail.
The Oscar is squarely in his sights.
It's Jeff De Blanc's third confirmed kill of the day.
De Blanc's almost out of fuel.
But he decides to stay and guard the SBDs.
My job was to protect the what?
The dive bombers. Now, I'm not a hero,
but I have to live with my conscience.
And if I didn't do what I was supposed to do,
then I'm derelict in my duties.
Suddenly, De Blanc realizes
the other Oscars have broken off their attack on the bombers
and are coming after him.
The Oscars dive down to swarm De Blanc and Feliton.
Outnumbered and under attack,
the two Americans instinctively fall back on a classic defensive maneuver.
the Thach Weave.
It's a simple but effective two-plane tactic
devised during the war by
Naval Commanders Jimmy Thach and James Flatley.
Paired up in a buddy system, the planes fly
200 feet apart. If an enemy attacks a Wildcat's tail,
the two American fighters will turn toward each other.
If the enemy follows, it will soon be targeted by the second plane.
For De Blanc and Feliton the Thach Weave works.
The Oscars are unable to attack
without exposing themselves to one of the Wildcats' guns.
But Feliton swings his Wildcat too wide
and suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of a trailing Oscar.
Bullets chew into Feliton's engine.
The Marine kicks his wounded Grumman into a wide left turn to get out of range.
He bails out.
With the mutual support of the weave now gone,
an Oscar dives in on De Blanc's tail.
De Blanc tries to shake off the enemy,
but the nimble Oscar easily stays lodged in the six o'clock position.
Then De Blanc's squadron mate Jim Seacrest
who has been with the bombers, comes to the rescue.
De Blanc is here.
Seacrest is here, heading straight on.
He is going to streak in directly over De Blanc's canopy
to get to the Oscar.
Seacrest almost takes off De Blanc's tail,
but the move works. The Oscar pulls away.
When De Blanc looks up,
both Seacrest and the Oscar are gone.
I said, "That's enough. I'm going home.
And I couldn't understand why I'm still fighting these guys,
'cause I'm going to be a dead man."
I turned back, and I streaked for home full-throttle.
I don't care if I'm using all the gas I have left.
Night is falling.
De Blanc's fuel state is critical.
He climbs to join the SBDs.
They've delivered punishing blows
to the Japanese and are heading home.
But before he rejoins the bombers,
he spots two more Oscars on his tail closing fast.,
January 1943.
The skies over Guadalcanal.
Marine fighter pilot Jefferson De Blanc is in trouble.
Two agile Japanese Oscar fighters
are tearing in from three o'clock high.
Even though he's low on fuel,
De Blanc knows he must challenge the Oscars
and draw them away from the American bombers.
De Blanc pulls a long right climbing turn
into the enemy and calls on the best tactic for his Wildcat.
He attacks head-on.
I'm the one that's climbing,
and these guys are the one coming down but very shallow.
When they saw me, they steepened the dive.
And when they steepened the dive, I cut loose.
And he--he blew up. I caught--I caught the pipes dead center.
The whole thing blew.
The Japanese fighter disintegrates,
nearly blinding De Blanc in the flying debris.
His engine separated and went past me,
separated and turning.
Weird-looking. I'd never had that before.
And of course, there's nothing but debris in front of me,
which I ran through.
And it hit my--my prop, and it hit the wings.
It didn't knock me out. Didn't knock me out. But I still had control,
and it still was ru-- my engine was running.
When De Blanc regains his senses,
he sees the second Oscar pulling in steeply behind him.
He was looking at me as if,
"That's a dead man I'm coming after
'cause I'm going to blow him right out of the sky."
And when he came on down that way,
we were both diving towards the sea.
And I knew good and well what the Grumman--
There's only one protection I have.
Flying straight, I couldn't do it,
because he can overtake me.
Pulling up, I couldn't do it, because he had me broadside.
Over here, when you pull up,
then you're gonna stall and come down. He can get you there.
So with only one option that I have to have
is-- the option is to fool him.
De Blanc forces his Wildcat into an aerial skid.
In effect, he's slamming on his brakes,
trying to force the Zero to overshoot.
When I skidded, then he--he was coming too fast.
I straightened out and just let him go.
We were wing-tip-to-wing-tip.
The Oscar pilot tries to duplicate the skid,
bleeding speed to stay on the Wildcat's tail.
And he fishtailed, and he couldn't do it. He went right past me.
I looked at him, and he looked at me.
And I could recognize that man today.
And you'll say, "You're crazy, man."
Well, when you kill somebody during war
and you see him,
you'll have witnessed what I'm talking about.
With the Oscar now at point-blank range,
a single burst destroys the fighter.
It's De Blanc's fifth confirmed kill of the day.
He's an ace in one afternoon.
But his sense of triumph is fleeting.
His eyes race over his instruments.
He checks his watch.
The instant I looked at my watch,
a 7.7 Japanese bullet
came over there and knocked my wristwatch off my wrist.
Well, that kinda scared me.
Now De Blanc is squarely in an Oscar's sights,
taking hits to his engine, prop, and cockpit.
Only the Wildcat's armor plate is keeping him alive.
He kept firing.
The bullets were coming past the engine
and hit--hitting at the prop area,
which of course is messing my prop up.
Pretty soon he hit the engine, and she caught fire.[engine sputters]
Then I knew I was in trouble, and I bailed out.
De Blanc hits the water and swims to an enemy-held island.
Natives pick him up
and barter him to a friendly tribe for a sack of rice.
Most people cannot price out
their exact amount of money they are worth.
But I know exactly how much I am worth.
One 10-pound sack of rice.
Second lieutenant De Blanc is an amazing figure in Marine aviation.
He lives to tell this whole tale, comes back out,
and-- rightly so--earned the Medal of Honor for his mission.
By February 1943, the ragtag Cactus Air Force
has fought the best of Japanese aviation to a virtual standstill.
Tokyo decides the costs of trying to win Guadalcanal have been too great.
The Guadalcanal Campaign lasted officially six months, from August of 1942 into February
of '43, at which time
Tokyo decided to withdraw the forces remaining there.
Over 11,000 Japanese troops are quickly evacuated.
20,000 others have died in combat or succumbed
to disease and starvation.
Nearly 6,000 Americans were killed or wounded.
It's a major victory.
Guadalcanal becomes a launching point
for the Allied thrust across the Pacific.
But on April 7, 1943,
the Japanese attempt final revenge
---a last desperate attack on American convoys
supplying Guadalcanal and the Allied effort.
They launch a large-scale air offensive
from their bases on the Northern Solomon Islands,
as well as from four aircraft carriers.
The massive strike force numbers over 200 planes.
Near Guadalcanal,
4 Wildcats led by young First Lieutenant James Swett
are on routine patrol over the American convoys.
We were circling around and whatnot.
And finally, Smiley Burnett of 214 hollered that, uh,
"My God, there's millions of 'em!"
We looked out there and thought, "Holy smokes,
there's--there-- there is millions of 'em."
They were just like mosquitoes.
And we thought, "Oh, God. Here's we four airplanes and
about 75 or 80 Japanese dive bombers heading for us,
along with about 150 Zeros."
The Japanese formation is here.
Swett's fighters are below them here,
about eight miles away.
The enemy hasn't spotted the Wildcats.
Swett climbs towards the Japanese Val dive bombers.
Modeled after the German Stuka,
the Aichi D3A2 VAL dive bomber
is a mainstay of the Japanese carrier fleet,
packing machine guns on each wing
and 7.7-mm rear gun.
The dive bomber's tactic is dive steeply from 15,000 feet,
accelerate to 300 mph,
release their bombs at smokestack level,
and head for home.
Eager to get his first kill,
Swett pulls away from the other F4Fs and looks for a target.
3 Vals nose over to begin their dive-bombing run
on the American ships below.
Swett streaks down behind them.
Suddenly, the rear gunner unleashes a stream of tracer fire
directly towards Swett.
April 7, 1943.
Japan has launched a last-ditch effort to avenge its humiliation at Guadalcanal.
Marine Lieutenant James Swett pursues 3 Japanese Val dive bombers
attacking an Allied shipping convoy.
The Vals' rear gunners fire up at Swett's Wildcat.
Then a single burst from 300 yards
ignites the lightly armored Val's fuel lines.
It's Swett's first kill.
I just picked one and just gave him a squirt,
and he flamed like crazy.
Swett closes in on a second Val.
The bomber's right wing is riddled by the first burst.
A second shot rips the fuselage.
Swett has two kills in as many minutes.
But almost immediately, Swett finds himself in a shootout
with the third bomber's tail gunner.
7.7-mm bullets zip past the Wildcat.
But once again, Swett's incendiary rounds hit fuel.
Then a violent explosion off his left wing.
It's friendly fire.
Anti-aircraft flak has blown a hole in his Wildcat.
Swett yanks his fighter out of the dive.
I was, number one, scared.
Number two, frightened.
Number three, ready to bail out of that darn
thing. And you couldn't believe how nervous I was.
Sweet keeps climbing, ready to call it a day,
but he spots a line of Vals immediately in front of him.
They've dropped their bombs and are hightailing for home.
In spite of his battle damage, Swett closes on the Vals from behind.
He lines one up and fires.
It's kill number four.
I was down below them,
and, uh--so that the rear gunner couldn't shoot me.
And when I fired my guns, I'd just stick the nose up a little bit,
and give a quick blast.
And it was fantastic how they burned.
The uncompromising discipline of the Japanese Naval aviators
dictates that they stay in formation and not take evasive action.
Each one of them went down in turn
as I was chasing them like this and, uh, shooting.
And, uh, it only took 2 or 3 rounds per gun,
it just ripped 'em up something awful.
And they'd flame, just like that.
A fifth victim drifts into the Wildcat's gun sites.
The rear gunner leaps for his life,
moments before his plane plummets toward the ocean.
On his first combat mission,
the Marine rookie has become an ace in less than 15 minutes.
Incredibly, the surviving Vals hold formation.
Stunned at his luck, Swett pilots his Wildcat
onto the tail of a sixth Val,
downing it with a brief burst.
Like a lion hunting panicked prey,
Swett continues within the pack of Vals,
lining up yet another victim.
A smoking death roll marks his seventh kill.
No longer scared,
the Marine is starting to feel invincible.
Just talk about overconfidence.
Uh, that was me.
As he sizes up an eighth victim,
Swett throws caution overboard.
I was aimed right straight for the rear gunner.
And I flew right into that damn gun.
He just blasted my windshield and me and everything else.
Swett is cut from the shattered glass
but fires a final burst and kills the Val's gunner at close range.
I can still see his eyes right now. The...
the terror in his eyes while he was shooting at me. And ...
when I fired back, he fell down into the cockpit.
Shocking.
But with no ammo in his crippled aircraft,
Swett knows the next kill is likely to be him.
He hit my oil cooler
and disabled my engine,
because the oil pressure just dropped like a ton of bricks.
And I thought, "Uh-oh, I've got to get the heck out of here."
Swett's engine begins to fail.
He decides to ditch off nearby Florida Island.
Just about, oh, 1/2 mile or so offshore,
my engine froze, vroom. [engine sputters]
The prop stuck up like a middle finger.
And so I made a, uh--
put-- let my flaps come down, and they didn't.
Only one side worked.
This side didn't work at all for some stupid reason.
Probably that hole in my wing.
Swett makes an emergency landing.
But upon impact with the water, his head strikes the control panel,
breaking his nose.
Worse, he's trapped in his sinking plane.
I made a water landing
and, uh, went down about 25 or 30 feet with the ...
with the airplane. My shoulder strap was caught on the ...
the boat release hook right up over my right shoulder,
and then, I struggled to get out of that damned airplane.
Reaching the surface, James Swett is rescued
and spends six days in the hospital.
He returns to Guadalcanal
to learn he's been nominated for the Medal of Honor.
Today, along with the medal,
Swett holds onto the image of the Val's rear gunner.
The look on that rear gunner's face when I killed him
...I still see it night after night after night.
James Swett and his fellow airmen
were eventually joined by over 70 aircraft from Henderson field.`
The Cactus Air Force turned back the Japanese onslaught.
Never again will the Japanese take the offensive in the Pacific.
The men of the Cactus Air Force
can take pride in their critical role in turning the tide in the Pacific War.
And it was the kind of Americans who fought
and prevailed under extraordinary circumstances
at Guadalcanal who demonstrated,
not only to themselves but to their entire generation,
that they had what it would take to prevail in World War II.
In the battle for the skies over Guadalcanal,
the pilots of the Cactus Air Force flew more than 2,000 sorties,
destroying over 425 Japanese planes,
and scoring a kill ratio of nearly 4 to 1.
The legacy of the pilots of the Cactus Air Force is absolutely amazing.
We still study the battles.
The lessons learned from Guadalcanal in one-v-one air combat
are nearly as true today as they were then.
The battle for Guadalcanal was a defining moment in Marine Corps history.
Led by men like John L. Smith,
Jeff De Blanc,
and James Swett,
this group of flyers overcame the worst of circumstances
to send the best pilots of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Air Force
to the bottom of the sea.