Synopsis
The only published firsthand memoir of a World War II U.S. Navy carrier-based torpedo bomber pilot.
For twenty-five months of continuous combat, Gerald W. Thomas flew TBM Avenger torpedo bombers with Torpedo Squadron Four (VT-4), serving aboard three legendary aircraft carriers — USS Ranger, USS Bunker Hill, and USS Essex. As a member of Air Group Four, the only U.S. Navy carrier air group to fight in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, Thomas participated in some of the most significant naval air operations of World War II.
His combat career began in the North Atlantic during Operation Leader, the U.S. Navy's historic carrier strike against German shipping and shore installations near Bodø, Norway — the largest American carrier attack ever launched against occupied Northern Europe. During the raid, Thomas's TBM Avenger was hit by intense anti-aircraft fire while attacking an ammunition-laden vessel. With his aircraft burning, oil covering the windshield, and one crewman's parachute accidentally deployed inside the airplane, bailout became impossible. Thomas nursed the crippled aircraft back to USS Ranger and crash-landed aboard the carrier, saving the lives of all three crewmen.
Transferred to the Pacific, Thomas flew combat missions over the Philippines, Formosa, French Indochina, Hainan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Japan. He participated in the first carrier strikes against the Japanese home islands since the famous Doolittle Raid and witnessed firsthand the relentless final campaigns of the Pacific War.
While serving aboard USS Essex, Thomas had just returned from a strike when the carrier was struck by a kamikaze aircraft, killing sixteen sailors and wounding forty-four. Later, after another combat mission, he was forced to ditch his Avenger in the China Sea when it ran out of fuel. After enduring towering pre-typhoon seas in life rafts, Thomas and his crew were rescued by USS The Sullivans.
Unlike memoirs written decades after the war from memory alone, this book is grounded in Thomas's wartime journal, letters home, and more than forty years of interviews with fellow pilots and crewmen. Supported by twenty oral histories, five combat journals, and 209 photographs, most never before published, it provides an unparalleled cockpit-level view of carrier aviation during World War II. Among the illustrations are gun-camera photographs, reconnaissance images, rare photographs collected during the war, and the extraordinary image of Thomas's own torpedo bomber sinking beneath the China Sea after his forced water landing.
For his extraordinary combat service, Gerald W. Thomas received three Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Air Medals, and two Presidential Unit Citations, retiring from the U.S. Navy Reserve as a Lieutenant Commander.
Richly illustrated and meticulously documented, Torpedo Squadron Four is essential reading for anyone interested in naval aviation, aircraft carriers, the TBM Avenger, the Atlantic and Pacific air wars, Operation Leader, USS Ranger, USS Bunker Hill, USS Essex, and the personal experiences of the men who flew some of World War II's most dangerous combat missions.
About the Author
David Thomas is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham. His publications include Anti-Christian Polemic in Early Islam: Abu 'Isa al-Warraq's 'Against the Trinity (1992), and Syrian Christians under Islam, the First Thousand Years (2000).
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