“We’d make an attack, keep our altitude advantage and speed, and go down again,” McCampbell recalled in a 1987 interview for the U.S. Roy Rushing, who died in 1986, received the Navy Cross. David McCampbell (above: in an undated photo), who died in 1996, received the Medal of Honor while Ens. 50-caliber machine guns.įor their bravery that day, Capt.

From on high, they waded into the enemy on repeated sorties, each blasting away with six. Throttling their Hellcats’ powerful 2,000-horsepower engines, they ascended for the attack. Roy Rushing, were looking for trouble up ahead and they found it-a squadron of 60 Japanese aircraft, including bombers escorted by Zeroes, the feared fighter of the Japanese Imperial Navy.ĭespite being overwhelmingly outnumbered, the American pilots never hesitated.

It was October 24, 1944, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf-the largest naval engagement in modern history-had just begun. Below them, armadas of ships clashed in an epic battle to control the sea around the island of Luzon, where American and Australian ground forces engaged the Japanese in bitter combat. Two Grumman F6F Hellcats streaked across the sky above the Philippines.

World war 2 navy squadrons