Presentation Date: January 22, 1998
Lloyd Childer
TBD Gunner at Midway TBD Gunner at Midway
"Torpedo-3 Gunner at Midway"
June 4th, 1942 was Lloyd Childer's 21st birthday. It was also a day Lloyd was lucky to survive, amidst the great clash of Japanese and American aircraft carriers known as the Battle of Midway Island. Breakfast that morning was steak and eggs. "We've never had steak and eggs before, never heard of it," Lloyd says one squadron member commented. "Somebody said, "It's the last meal for condemned men." " As it turned out, Lloyd was one of but a handful of pilots and gunners whose torpedo bombers were decimated in attacks on Japanese Admiral Yamamoto's Midway invasion fleet.
Just six months earlier, Lloyd Childers was a Seaman 1st Class, a radioman aboard the destroyer USS Cassin, in dry dock at Pearl Harbor. He vividly remembers December 7th, 7:55 a.m. Reading a newspaper inside the Cassin's radio shack, Childers was startled by an explosion. Three more booms sent him running above deck just as a Japanese Zero roared overhead, pulling out of a run on the battleship. Lloyd huddled with other crew under a crane on the dock as debris flew from explosions and planes spun down, splashing into the harbor. He ducked under torpedo tubes when bombs exploded nearby and he "could feel the heat and paint chips hitting him in the face." Seeing the warheads on the torpedoes, he decided that wasn't the place to be.
After Pearl Harbor, Lloyd was assigned to the torpedo squadron in which his brother served, VT-3, which flew the Douglas TBD Devastator. Told it was impossible to make the transfer, Childers still managed to get his orders signed by a commanding officer "routinely" signing other papers.
At a meeting for VT-3 staff officers and flight crews, Childers heard an assessment that chilled him. "The planners had calculated that in a fifteen-plane squadron attack on a Japanese fleet, if three of us got through to deliver torpedoes, we'd have accomplished our mission."
At the morning briefing of June 4th, Yorktown crews were told they would be held in reserve. About 10 am, the order came - - "Pilots and crew, man your planes," and about 90 minutes later, Childers saw smoke on the horizon. VT-3 dropped from about 2000 feet altitude to prepare for its torpedo run. Childers was facing aft when his pilot, Harry Corl, told him to look ahead. As he swiveled in his seat, Childers watched a Japanese Zero fly knife-edge between his TBD and the skipper's plane. It was the start of an melee that would prove disastrous for the torpedo bombers. Lloyd manned his single .30 cal machinegun, trying difficult deflection shots against the Zeros.
When the air cleared for a moment, and Lloyd looked down, startled to see the TBD only about 100 feet from the ocean - - and passing right over a Japanese cruiser. "Everybody on that ship must be shooting at us," he says he thought. "The next thing I heard was, "we're not going to make it." Harry Corl was struggling to control the TBD after the elevator controls had been shot out. The bomber was headed for the carriers, and Corl released the torpedo. Free of the extra weight, Corl regained some control by using the elevator trim tab.
The Zeros returned. Making high side passes, they methodically riddled the remaining TBDs with gunfire. On one attack, two 7.7mm rounds passed through Childers left thigh. The Zeros then started coming in from the starboard beam, which gave the gunner an awkward shot, as he couldn't get behind the gun to sight it. Lloyd says he slid his right leg out to try and get behind the gun, until his ankle was hit by a slug. One Zero, came up under the TBD from behind, possibly to clip the TBD's tail with its prop, but Childers chased him away with a .30 cal burst.
Then, the gun jammed, and Childers couldn't unjam it. "I cringed when the Zeros came in for their runs. If nothing else, the machine gun had been a morale booster." Lloyd pulled his .45 cal pistol and began firing from behind the machine gun shield. After two passes, the Zeros left and another TBD pulled alongside. "Bill Esder's (the other TBD pilot) gunner had been hit with 20mm shells that blew the flesh off his legs. He'd also been hit with 7.7s, and a 20mm went through his side." The gunner would live only until that TBD ditched and he was put into the life raft.
Corl nursed his Devastator back to the Yorktown, only to be unable to land due to the huge bomb hole on the carrier's flight deck. Ditching near the Yorktown, Corl directed a rescue boat from an escort destroyer to pick up Childers. Once in the water, Childers says he had energy for only a half dozen strokes before he was totally exhausted. Corl warned his gunner to "get away" as the TBD slid beneath the water. Lloyd tapped the ship's tail as she went down.
Put on a liner headed back to Pearl Harbor, Childers met Ensign George Gay, the sole survivor of Torpedo 8. Apparently thinking Childers might have been another VT-8 crewman, Gay rushed to see Childers. Lloyd says Gay told him something that he hadn't offered in other recollections of Midway - - "that he was number 15, alone, everybody was gone. He kept boring in, released his torpedo, and seeing all the (Japanese) planes on the decks, thought he'd fly into the deck and take 'em out." Lloyd says Gay told him he intended to do it, but it didn't happen.
Lloyd Childers got his opportunities to fly and fight again. He became a Marine aviator in January 1944 and flew night missions in F4U Corsairs in Korea. In Vietnam, Childers commanded helicopter squadron HMM-361.