Golden Gate Wing Guest Speaker Archive

Presentation Date: June 26, 2003

CDR Ted Crosby USN (RET)

Fighter ACE, ACE-in-a Day, flying the F6F "Hellcat". Ted has spoken once before to the GGW, but it was about five (5) years ago,and we have many new members who have never heard him--plus, he has MANY more experiences to share!! Fighter ACE, ACE-in-a Day, flying the F6F "Hellcat". Ted has spoken once before to the GGW, but it was about five (5) years ago,and we have many new members who have never heard him--plus, he has MANY more experiences to share!! Still Lucky

"Thank God for those six .50s.  I opened up on him and the first thing I knew I saw an engine going up over the top of my cockpit."

In 1998, US Navy ace Ted Crosby told a Golden Gate Wing gathering, "I'm just damned lucky and I'm just lucky to be here, really." Five years later, July 24th, 2003, his luck is holding out. And he still holds an audience's attention telling the experiences of his flying career, especially about being one of the few pilots in the world who can say he shot down five enemy aircraft on one mission, making him an "Ace-in-a-Day"!

Ted was born in Eureka, California and grew up in the Bay Area and was enrolled at Marin Junior College when World War II started.  He signed up with the Navy at San Francisco's Embarcadero, was sent to St. Mary's for preflight school, and then to Livermore to fly the N2-S "Yellow Peril". Crosby's Golden Wings were awarded in Corpus Christi, and then he was off to Opalocka for carrier landing practice and the Great Lakes for carrier qualifications in an SNJ on the USS Wolverine.

As Ted came out to the west coast to get his assignment in the Pacific, he was intent on serving on a fleet carrier instead of on one of the smaller 'jeep' escort carriers.

"In San Diego I walked in with four days left on my leave and this guy assigned me to a jeep carrier.  And I said, 'Nah. I'll be back tomorrow. I've got a couple of days left and I don't want a jeep carrier. If I'm going in there, I want to go on the big guys'.

"So I kept coming back for four days and every time this guy says, 'I'm gonna' put you on a jeep carrier. That's where you're going'.

"Finally, on my last day, thank goodness, Jim Bellow - - he'd been in the Battle of Midway, shot down and fished out of the water - - came out and instructed this guy to assign me to VF-18. The assignment officer had a fit. He said, 'No, he's mine.'

But Bellows responded that he was there to set up a VF squadron for a bigger carrier and he wanted Crosby. Ted relates that he was just very fortunate to be persistent enough to get the big carrier assignment.

Before VF-18 could finish its gunnery training from Alameda Naval Air Station, the squadron was ordered to sea aboard the USS Bunker Hill , which was already carrying Tom Blackburn's VF-17 with its F4U Corsairs.  On the way to Hawaii, there was a surprise announcement that VF-17 would become a land-based unit. The maker of the Corsairs, Chance-Vought, had been unable to amass necessary spare parts for carrier operations.  "I always thought of it as more Chance than Vought... They (VF-17) were put ashore at Princess Augusta Bay in the Solomon Islands and they did well by themselves."

Crosby's first combat came in an attack on Rabaul, the Japanese Navy stronghold at the northern end of the Solomon Islands. During a nine-month campaign, the 5th and 13th Army Air Forces would fly north to attack Rabaul, while Admiral Halsey's carrier groups would launch planes to the west to join the raids.

"On one of the return trips from the attack they (VF-17) came out and landed aboard. We had a big rendezvous with the other air group, because we'd trained with those guys on the east coast. They'd been land-based and all had a beard and were filthy. They had showers and shaved, got a good meal, and then all flew off in the morning. The ship was pretty crowded for just parking the guys, because we'd go to sea with 90 airplanes on those big carriers.

"We had a meeting after World War II with them, and it didn't work out too good.   Because most of those guys were pretty good heroes in their own right and weren't to friendly with the fact that we'd replaced them."

Ted's first victory, on November 26, 1943, was shared credit for a Mitsubishi Betty. The three other Hellcats in his flight also hit the bomber, so each pilot took credit for 1/4 of the kill. After only a short time in action, the Bunker Hill  headed back to Hawaii to replenish supplies.

"We were in Hilo, wondering when we were going to get another assignment. Finally they sent us out on a jeep carrier to the Philippines. The Philippines by then (post Marianas Turkey shoot and MacArthur's landing at Luzon) were being occupied by us and that's when we picked up the Hornet .

With VF-18 reforming as VF-17 on the Hornet  from January 1945 to the end of the war, the squadron found itself on missions to hit Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Tokyo, all in preparation for the planned final assault on Japan.

"We made a raid on a little field called Tatiyama, right on the coast of Japan, just below Sagami-wan, which is the entrance to Tokyo Bay. And as we were flying in... I looked up and there was a covey of Zeros up there circling around. And right when I was watching them, one of them broke off and started down. 

"My division leader was a wild man. He'd taken off after something else, and I was pretty much out there alone. So I was watching this enemy fighter and trying to judge when to pull up and go after him... and unfortunately, I pulled up a little bit too soon, and ran out of airspeed. I knew when I fired the guns I was going to stall and spin out. I didn't really care because I thought I was all alone up there... and I fell off to the left, right in front of another guy (another USN pilot) who was right along side of me. His prop tore up my tail feathers something terrible and I just spun off and crossed in front of him. Thank goodness he didn't open up like I did on this guy coming down, or I would have been history right then.

"I guess he had as much trouble as I did because his propeller was completely out of balance and all screwed up. His propeller hit my rudder and pitched my right leg back into me explosively. It twisted my ankle and my leg turned black and blue clear up to the knee."

As Ted and the other Hellcat were laboring back to the carrier, a pair of Corsairs came limping along to join them. Both Hellcats and one of the Corsairs got back to the fleet and landed safely, the Corsair landing on the Bennington . Strangely, the second F4U flew off in another direction, to be seen again only after Crosby and the other two pilots had landed.

Later on during a shore leave, Ted says he saw the Bennington  Corsair pilot, asked him why the other F4U had turned away, and got the kidding response," That was our skipper. He never knows where he's going."

Back on the carrier, X-rays showed no break in Ted's leg from the severe banging by the rudder pedal, but now, 60 years later, probably thanks to arthritis, the leg gives Ted a painful reminder of the incident.

 

On April 16th, 1945, five fleet carriers flew operations to support the invasion of Okinawa. Crosby's section was assigned to fly an AIRCAP over a destroyer running a radar picket line north of Okinawa.

Lt. Millard Wooley, known as "Fuzz", was leading the division of four Hellcats, and he started climbing when a call came out for twenty incoming bogeys. Crosby says the destroyer immediately noticed the AIRCAP leaving and repeatedly called for the Hellcats to maintain station over the warship. 

"This poor guy on the destroyer, you could tell he was almost in tears," Crosby recalls, " 'Do not leave us!'.  You are our protection.  We need you.'  And old Fuzz said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.  We'll be back.' "

The destroyer was especially sensitive about keeping fighter cover right over itself, because it was the third destroyer on that station serving as a picket ship, relaying communications and reports of enemy movements. And, its two predecessorts had been recently sunk by Japanese warplanes.

As the fighters climbed through 15,000 feet, they spotted the bogeys, about ten of them at about the altitude of the AIRCAP, with another 10-15 further up. As the climb continued, Fuzz's and Crosby's wingmen fell out of formation, one of them with oxygen trouble and the other with a mechanical problem. Crosby painfully recalls he could only keep his supercharger engaged by wedging his knee against the blower clutch handle. Even then, he fell behind as Fuzz flew head-on through the enemy formation, shooting down two aircraft along the way. 

Crosby remembers, as the Hellcats confronted the enemy, VF-18's skipper kept asking for the AIRCAP's location. "Never mind, skipper," was Fuzz' reply, says Crosby. "We've got these guys cornered."

The Japanese formation was a mixed group - - a few fighters flown by experienced pilots and some dive bombers and trainers loaded with explosives - -  "kami-crazies" as Ted calls them.

"One of these guys turned into me to take me head-on as I caught up to their group. Thank God for those six .50s.  I opened up on him and the first thing I knew I saw an engine going up over the top of my cockpit. Those six .50s would just blow things to pieces."

Crosby had blown up a Mitsubishi J2M "Jack". He then made quick work of a 'Zeke', an explosive-laden kamikaze.

 

Fuzz, having shot down two enemy fighters, turned to see Ted's Hellcat trying to rejoin with him. Apparently thinking it was an enemy aircraft, he mistakenly began shooting at Crosby, who pushed over and watched the tracers flash by.

Then Crosby heard Fuzz ask, "Was that you Ted?"

"You got it right."

"Did I get you?"

"...Noooo."

When the two F6F pilots tried to coordinate an attack on another pair of Jacks, Fuzz announced he was out of ammo and offered himself as bait, feinting attacks at the Japanese fighters, allowing Crosby to knock down two more Jacks.

On the way back to the carrier a kamikaze streaked by and Wooley gave chase, right down to the wave tops, where both planes rolled inverted. As Crosby called to Wooley to roll-out, the kamikaze plunged into the island jungle and exploded. 

"And with that I turned to shoot down a kamikaze making a run on the destroyer. Knowing the destroyer's radar could not distinguish Crosby from the enemy, he broke off his attack right before the Japanese plane was also hit by flak.

Crosby became an "Ace in a Day" credited with shooting down three Jacks (Mitsubishi J3M Raiden), one Zeke and one Val. Ted says at first he didn't think much of having downed a group of kamikazes. But when he later learned of the damage suicide planes were causing, he became proud of his efforts.

From the air, he witnessed the kamikaze attack on the carrier USS Franklin . The mission that day was a squadron-strength reconnaissance run to the Inland Sea.

"Twelve of us went in to see what was in there. We'd heard there was quite a gathering of ships at Kure... a big naval and construction base. We were running under this overcast that we could almost see through, and my  good ol' buddy Wooley pulled up to the leader and gave him the signal to go on top. And the guy came back and said, 'Stay off the air. I'm the leader, get out of here.'

Crosby says Wooley silently signaled he wanted fly topside of the scudded overcast. And they did.

"We pop out on top and sure enough, there's four Georges (Kawanishi N1K2 "Shiden"), just tracking along, watching us underneath the overcast. And as soon as we popped up - - we'd fallen back climbing through and the rest of the squadron was up ahead of us - - they spotted us, wiggled their wings and down they went after our guys. We lost at least six guys right there. Some real good friends of mine lost it that day, I'll tell you."

Crosby says he and Wooley continued on to take the photos the Navy wanted of the Japanese fleet in the Inland Sea. Ted says he loitered too long over the target after his friends went home.

"Each ship had its own color of antiaircraft. There were purple and pink and orange explosions, and it was quite spectacular to see all the stuff they were trying to get us with.

So I just went across the harbor and mapped it in and came out."

"As soon as we had come over Shokaku, Japan we reported there was shipping in there. They launched an attack group off the carriers, and in they came. About the time I finished my mapping, they'd done their dirty work and were retreating across the Inland Sea. I started down to join them, and I had my plot board out and I'm putting down the time of day, slant of sun and all that that you do with photography. At about this time I look out at my starboard side and there's stuff bouncing off my wing. I look in the mirror and here's some guy right on me. Only time I ever got anybody right on my tail."

 

The Japanese fighter, probably a George, pulled up after making the pass.  But Crosby thought that to follow him, alone over Japan, wasn't a good idea. The Japanese pilot had left Crosby his calling card, as Ted later found an unexploded 30 mm shell in the cockpit armor of his Hellcat.

Crosby says he was just about back to the Hornet, when he saw a plane plunge down in a dive bombing attack over the Franklin .

"He wasn't a kamikaze. He was a good bomber, and he laid one right in the middle of that flight deck. Of course, they were re-arming, so they had ordnance all over the deck. They blew sky-high, and I really thought they were done because it was one big black ball of smoke. But in a minute here she comes, steaming right out of it on her own power.

"Our cruisers came right alongside, hoses going. And as we all know, we lost a bunch of people, but she made it back and got fixed up again."

 

Ted remained in the postwar Navy, continuing to fly such aircraft types as the F8F Bearcat and the AD Skyraider.  He also was involved with carrier operations on the east coast, in the role of Landing Signal Officer (LSO).

"I'm out there at night qualifying a bunch of Marines... and this one Corsair came around.  He was turning too close, banked way up and almost dragged a wing where I was.

You had a crew back there that's working with you. And I said, 'We're outta' here.' You've got a net to jump into, and a screen up behind you because there's close to 40 knots of wind there.

"This one guy dropped the screen just as I go to jump. The wind catches me and I don't make it into the net. The next thing, I ended up over the side (55 feet into the water) and breast-stroking.

"What really saved me was... the little one-cell signal light on my Mae West. I used to use it to write down notes when a guy would land, what he'd done wrong. But that little one cell flashlight - - when I finally got picked up by a destroyer - - the captain had me up to the bridge and said,'You better thank that light. I would have never found you out here. Every time you'd come up on a wave, that light was just like a full moon over there. And then when you'd go down we'd lose you.' "

 

Back at Alameda, Crosby flew a variety of trainers which required flying time to extend their maintenance cycles. Among those trainers was a Harvard, the British version of the North American SNJ / AT-6 trainer. Ted found a wooden pilot's seat in the Harvard was much to his disliking.

"I decided to do a loop, and I'm going up over, just playing around, and I get up on top and the stress is in a different position and this... wood seat just falls apart! The seat belt is still fastened to the base of the airplane. And I come on down and can hardly see out, so I got around on my knees and I'm able to drive this thing.

"I wound up putting it back on the runway very carefully, and then I  shifted around as it was rolling out and gradually braked it, yelling at the crash crew, 'I got a problem, follow me!' And when I pulled off they were right there."

 

One of Crosby's most intriguing exploits in a Bearcat occurred when he flew a photo mission with a young ensign as wingman over the Swiss Alps and then across Romania to the Adriatic Sea.

"There was a bunch of stuff that they knew had been built during the war that they didn't have any reconnaissance of. I was on this mission to try to pick up some of these things. There were some bridges built and stuff like that...

"It was clouded in... and I flew the string of targets, down the whole back of the Alps and I wound up over Romania. The Air Group, meantime, is out over the Adriatic, torpedo and dive bombers and the Air Group Commander. As I got out over Romania, here came three Me 109s taking off. And I'm in this Bearcat that I know could easily handle those guys. The only difference was they had ammo and I didn't.

"I had this young ensign with me, and as these guys came up I just dropped down and got on their tails. Of course they had a fit. They would loop and they would roll. It's a hell of an airplane, that Me 109. But the Bearcat could just hang in there with them.  Finally, the Air Group Commander could see some of the contrails and he said, 'Crosby where are you? Why aren't you joining?' "

Ted answered he was coming, but hesitated as to the best way to break off.  The pause was but momentary, as Ted pushed the throttle wide open, pulled the stick back into his gut and the Bearcat leaped up and climbed swiftly away from the Me 109s.

That young ensign with Crosby later wound up as a squadron commander and still tells Ted today that that was his greatest day in aviation.