Former President George H. W. Bush on His World War II Experiences

well on September in 1944 my torpedo bomber and I took off from the USS San Jacinto we were part of task force 58 the very next day we were to move south under haul Z's fleet to be part of Task Force 30 38 and so I knew that this after this mission our ship would head south a couple of thousand miles away any event it was a quick clear day best of my memory I was I was just turned 20 and it I knew it was going to be a fairly dangerous mission because the day before our Air Group our squadron VT 51 had flown over chichi Jima and we'd encountered a fair amount of flak so I knew was going to be tough and but this was our duty was there's no question about it and the the thing that was different on this flight is the my friend who was the gunnery officer fellow Yale graduate came up to me and said can I fly with you Ted White and I said sure if you want to I mean but you got to get permission from the skipper of our squadron he said well he had no problem with it so my gunner did not did not fly and Ted White did anyway we get over that we've climbed to 10,000 or 12,000 in our mission was to drop five four or five hundred pound bombs on a radio station on chichi Jima and I was I was the second two men flights for two of them with the leader our skipper and then I have one or more guy named milk more on my wing and we'd over pushed over it about that you feel like you're going straight down but was it was about I think 40 degrees or maybe less and but it just felt like a diet like a like a dive bomb anyway we've got in there the flak was very heavy you could just see it and hear it almost but around you as I was two-thirds of the way down I felt this whole plane jolt forward and soon it was a lot of smoke I looked on the wings of the plane after I pulled out and you can see the wing the flames going down where the wings folded on the TBF and I knew I was in serious trouble I did manage to before pulling out to go out now to try to get to safety I did manage to drop the bombs and did what I was paid to do what I wanted to do for our country then I went out to sea I saw that I couldn't possibly fly this plane back to the ship and it was all happening very fast when I saw the flame along the wing which is right where the fuel tanks are I said I better get out of here turn the plane to the right to take the take the wind off the slipper to take the slipstream off the door where the crewmen supposed to get out made about a 180 and then I told them to get out and then I jumped out myself it turned out that one of them fortunately one of them had gotten out reported by the Japanese and confirmed before he went down that which was a great relief to me even though I still worry about the loss of those two men to this very day I made an exit from the plane dome out onto the wing I did it very badly I pulled the ripcord too soon I hit my head on the tail horizontal stabilizer of the TBF and that glancing blow like this and bleeding like a stuck pig and the parachute momentarily hung up on the tail of the plane and ripped out some of the some of the panels of the chute so I fell faster than I normally would have I dropped into the ocean and I've managed to get the chute off properly you're supposed to undo this strap here and then hold your hands up so when you hit the water this shoe to blow away which it did right on towards chichi Jima and that I had failed to hook my seat pack on hook took my life jet my life lifeboat onto the onto the parachute so a fighter plane came douve down showed me where that was and I swam over got into this life raft and started paddling as fast as I could to go out to sea the wind was blowing towards chichi and I was I was blowing towards chichi also and I've swam as fast as I could I was sick to my stomach I was scared and I wondered what happened to my crewman and suddenly I saw this this periscope hopeful Ike hello with the u.s. submarine in Japanese waters and it was the USS fin back they came alongside and picked me up pulled me onto the deck and the ship went back down again submarine went back down and that started 30 terrifying days as we stayed on war patrol for for 30 days on that on that submarine on a voyage which one our skipper of the submarine a Silver Star so it was it was a traumatic experience but no different and then a lot of kids went through in World War two that's the point I want to make because people you know talk about well your hero when it's not there's nothing heroic about doing your duty they're doing trying to serve with honor and there's nothing heroic about getting shot down I've always wondered it how they honor you if you've been shot down but if you do what you were supposed to do and you're playing safely back on the ship you're just another pilot well they had they had life-saving subs in the in if if they weren't otherwise occupied there'd be a submarine and they check in somewhere and say we're in this area so when I went down there was this just skipper of my squadron used that frequency to tell whatever submarine was listening this is the pilots down here's where he is and they just came in they'd rescued a guy earlier from from iwo jima I think it was her ha ha Jima which was another Island there then me and then after after I was a safely on board we went in and pulled another guy out and some Beckmann off the enterprise and it was just very lucky the submarine was there because as I said this fleet was going south and I knew that I would be if it didn't if somebody didn't pick me up I would have been captured and killed they were very brutal on say your prayers you think about your family in my case my mother and their father you worry about your men that didn't get out of the plane thank God one of them had and you just just pray that selfishly that you'll be all right you could be saved and I was sick to my stomach and then I was traumatic after 62 years or some odd years I understand you always question why me people oftentimes message and since you've had marriage children obviously your career doesn't take a different fuel to look back on that now because it just is still a question as a young man why you and know you always ask that why me I ask that when my daughter innocent little beautiful girl came down with leukemia she was four years old if you are an innocent and that's why us gonna find this little girl and so I think it's understandable that you you asked that question I did back then and probably would again if there was something as traumatic as that but it's I think it's normal we have great faith in our family and sometimes you wonder why God acts as he does and Lord acts in mysterious ways just accept that you pray about it you get on with your life you don't sit around wringing your hands and whining and so I was blessed and this enabled experience and I wondered why was I spared when two friends in the plane with me were killed you

Channel: U.S. Naval Institute

Views: 86,159

Rating: 4.879077 out of 5

Keywords: U.S. Naval Institute, USNI, World War II, George H. W. Bush, President Bush

Id: 3KTkfqk-OGw

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 01 2018