On one fateful afternoon, though, more than a dozen Japanese bombers were sent to attack the Lexington and its Wildcat fighters. US Navy photo. Photo by Skyler Smith via unsplash. Our friendly, expert private flight advisors are here to answer questions or start your quote today. Charter Flights Charter Flights Aligning your itinerary with the right aircraft to deliver the best performance for your flight. Continue on. McCormick, publisher of the Tribune , suggested that the name of what was then known as Orchard Depot Airport be changed in tribute to O'Hare.
O'Hare was born in in St. His father, Edward Joseph, was an attorney who represented Al Capone before turning against him and helping convict Capone of tax evasion.
The war hero's father died after being shot in his car a week before Capone was released from prison, leading many to speculate the gangster ordered the hit in retribution. O'Hare died in , after leading the U. After confronting Japanese torpedo bombers, O'Hare's aircraft was never found. At the naming of the airport, his mother Selma told reporters, "I am a very proud woman that this honor is being paid to my son. Driving home for lunch with Rita, he heard of the Pearl Harbor attack on the car radio.
The same month, the Japanese stormed ashore at Rabaul, several hundred miles north-northeast of Australia. Butch's squadron and the Lexington became part of a task force commanded by Vice Adm. As they steamed toward Australia, Brown realized that he was in uncharted waters for the U. He had to rely on navigation surveys completed by the British Royal Navy a century earlier. The Japanese commander at Rabaul had 18 land-based Mitsubishi bombers, nicknamed "Bettys" by the Americans because of their voluptuous shape.
The real Betty was said to be a well-endowed American Army nurse. February 20, 17 Bettys took off to attack Brown's task force in two waves. Through his periscope, an American submarine commander saw them coming and risked surfacing to radio the task force. All nine Bettys in the first wave were shot down by anti-aircraft fire and the Lexington's Wildcat fighters. Butch and his wing man, Duff Dufilho, were launched from the Lexington, and they watched the aerial battle as they climbed to combat altitude.
Then the Lexington's combat-information center radioed them to say that the remaining eight Bettys were on the way. As the second wave of bombers approached, Butch and Duff realized that they were the only American fighters positioned to attack. They charged their machine guns and attempted to fire test bursts.
Butch's four machine guns worked fine, but Duff's four jammed. The Japanese were about three minutes from dropping their bombs on the Lexington when Butch zoomed down to attack. The Japanese were flying in a V formation. Butch let the lead bombers pass, took aim at the last two on the right and fired short machine-gun bursts.
His hours of gunnery practice paid off as the bombers dropped out. It was this ship, the USS Lexington--his home carrier--that Butch O'Hare was defending when he dove into anti-aircraft fire on the mission that won him the Medal of Honor. Butch was back on the Lexington shortly after p. He had shot down five Japanese bombers in less than four minutes. In the after-action report, Capt.
Frederick Sherman, the Lexington's commander, recommended that Butch be decorated. Butch said he didn't want a medal, insisting, "The other officers in the squadron would have done the same thing. On March 4, Butch learned that he was front-page news throughout the United States. Up to this point, the war news had been consistently bad.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt realized that the country badly needed a live hero. And Butch was a young, handsome naval aviator who had slugged it out with a superior Japanese force and won.
At a. April 21, , Butch and Rita were ushered into Roosevelt's office, where the president promoted Butch to lieutenant commander and awarded him the Medal of Honor.
Photographers' flashes exploded as Rita hung the medal around her husband's neck. On the following Saturday, a parade was held in St. Arriving at 16th and Wash-ington shortly before noon, Butch was guided to the back seat of a long, black open Packard, where he sat between his wife and mother.
The parade began at noon, led by a police motorcycle escort. Then came the Jefferson Barracks band, marching veterans, a truck packed with photographers, Butch's car and other open cars carrying dignitaries.
Bringing up the rear were students from Western Military Academy. The next day, as Butch's mother and sisters clipped newspaper stories and photos, his place in history began to dawn on them.
One headline read, "60, give O'Hare a hero's welcome here. In early June , Butch arrived in Hawaii to take command of his old squadron amid the fleet's celebration of its victory at Midway, which would put the Japanese on the defensive for the remainder of the war.
Lundstrom describe a peaceful interlude of a year and a half for the new lieutenant commander. His squadron was based on Maui, where his pilots could train almost every day in perfect flying weather. According to the biography, one of the pilots, Lt. Mendenhall, originally wasn't too pleased about being assigned to the Maui backwater, but he had heard about Butch—that he was a hero and "a peach of a guy personally. Butch wrote his sister Marilyn for Thanksgiving , "I've put on 20 pounds In February , his squadron boarded ship for San Diego, where Butch would be reunited with Rita and see their daughter, Kathleen, for the first time.
The squadron, meanwhile, was joining an air group that would fly the new, bigger and more powerful F6F Hellcat fighters off newly constructed carriers. The Hellcats had modern landing gear; pilots would no longer have to retract the gear as they had in the old Wildcats by hand-cranking a mechanism made of sprockets and bicycle chains. Butch said goodbye to Rita and Kathleen in June, and his squadron returned to Maui. On July 26, the Hoogses threw a fabulous luau on the beach at Maui as a sort of graduation party for the squadron's rookies.
In August , Butch was promoted to air-group commander, overseeing three squadrons. But he still insisted that everyone call him Butch. The attacks on two atolls in the Gilbert Islands, Tarawa and Makin, would be the first American amphibious attacks on the Central Pacific route leading directly to Japan. Beginning on November 19, Butch's air group supported the assault on Makin.
A prisoner later said a dawn air strike killed the Japanese commander.
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