Email this page to friends RSS feed About the Author David Sears is a New Jersey-based business consultant and author. David's business consulting expertise encompasses executive and professional staffing, compensation and incentives, organizational change consulting, executive coaching and human resources process engineering. His book Successful Talent Strategies has been published by AMACOM. A forthcoming book Best Sellers , also to be published by AMACOM,  profiles best human capital practices in solution selling across multiple industries. David's early career included service as a United States Navy officer with extensive sea duty aboard a destroyer and a tour of duty as an advisor to the Vietnamese Navy during the Vietnam conflict. His  book The Last Epic Naval Battle: Voices of Leyte Gulf chronicles the exploits of 60 sailors and aviators in the last and most decisive sea battle of World War II. David has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MS in Industrial Relations from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Successful Talent Strategies   The Last Epic Naval Battle: Voices of Leyte Gulf David Sears Article Archive Military Opinions Index Your Two Cents Submit your stories, news items, or a benefits update -- and help Military.com bring the best, most important stories to your fellow servicemembers, veterans, and family members. Contribute here

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The CVEs were destined for three missions. In the Atlantic, the CVEs served primarily as launch platforms for anti-submarine warfare. In the Pacific, in addition to anti-submarine warfare, the CVEs had two other roles: first, to ferry fresh aircraft west, across vast stretches of ocean, to restock the big attack carriers; second, to provide air support for Marine and Army island-hopping assaults on Japanese garrisons.

These specialized roles necessarily meant that there wouldn't be many CVE-based fighter aces. Joe McGraw became one of only a handful to earn the distinction.

When seen from a distance during flight operations, the CVEs resembled floating, swarming insect hives. A small, open island superstructure -- the equivalent of a flight tower at a small dirt airstrip -- sat well forward on the ship's starboard side. The space for takeoffs and landings was menacingly short: barely half the length of flight decks on the newer fast attack carriers. (An Avenger pilot from another CVE squadron had this to say about the difference: “I got permission to land on Essex one day while it was operating in a rest area. Before my approach I'd started to ask Essex flight control which runway I should take. It really was a much bigger ship.”)

VC-10's young, eager pilots came relatively late to the war. Their first substantial action came over the cane fields, jagged ridges and caves of northern Saipan. Awaiting the invasion of Saipan, Joe and his squadron mates “were frustrated being on CAP (combat air patrol). We wanted to have at ‘em. The closest we could get that day was circling over the island.”

Each pilot carried a six-shot .38 caliber pistol tucked into a shoulder holster; these .38s became the impromptu, symbolic weapon of the day. “It was easy to open a Wildcat canopy part way -- three or four inches -- and lock it into position. All we had to do then was roll, point the .38 out the window, aim so you didn't punch a hole in the wing and pull the trigger.” Joe was surprised at the noise. “It was the first shot I fired in combat and it was a hell of a lot louder than I thought it would be.”

Real combat -- both the air and ground support varieties -- came soon enough, but it wasn't until October 1944, during the invasion of Leyte in the Philippines, that it reached a history-making peak for Joe, his VC-10 squadron mates and the crew of Gambier Bay. At dawn on October 25, a task force (dubbed Taffy 3) of CVEs, destroyers (DDs) and destroyer escorts (DEs) which included Gambier Bay, was surprised by a hefty force of Japanese battleships, cruisers and destroyers bound for Leyte Gulf intent on wiping out the U.S. invasion support ships.

As Taffy 3's DDs and DEs made gallant, near suicidal torpedo and gunfire rearguard assaults (two DDs and a DE were sunk during the engagement) and the slow-moving CVEs fled south, Taffy 3's pilots mounted furious, makeshift air strikes on the Japanese armada. Launched under fire, many of the FM-2s and TBMs either were not fully armed or carried the wrong weapons (most TBMs carried depth-charge bombs for combating submarines). As the morning hours lengthened, CVE pilots ran out of ammunition but they continued to dive at the Japanese ships, forcing the ships to continue evasive maneuvers and buying time for Taffy 3's fleeing CVEs and escorts.

Meanwhile, Gambier Bay had gotten caught in the crosshairs of a pack of Japanese cruisers. Gambier Bay lost headway and quickly sank; her surviving crew took to the water, where they survived nearly three harrowing days of exposure and shark attack before rescue.

As Gambier Bay plunged, VC-10's pilots -- out of ammunition, short on fuel and suddenly homeless -- were vectored to a jungle airstrip only recently captured by U.S. Army forces. Many of these aircraft crash landed or ended up locked in mud on runways and taxiways that were barely operational. Joe McGraw, his tanks close to empty, instead found his way to the flight deck of Manila Bay, a CVE assigned to Taffy 2 (then plowing north to back up Taffy 3 with more airpower). Re-armed and refueled, Joe joined Manila Bay 's VC-60 and returned to the fray in time to see the Japanese ships retreat north. This day the Japanese had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

In the next hours Joe continued to fly from Manila Bay. On one CAP sortie, Joe's section of four FM-2s was vectored to take on an incoming flight of eighteen Val bombers and twelve Zeros. During the ensuing melee, Joe downed what became his fifth kill.

Joe also squared off against a veteran Zero. Their duel was brief but unforgettable -- for me, a rare glimpse into the instincts and artistry of a fighter pilot:

“The pilot jerked the Zero up on its nose, whipped the plane around and got it heading strait at me, firing his cannon. It was the greatest turn in a fighter that I'd ever seen -- or would ever see again.” Joe's reflexes took over. “I rolled left and knife-edged him.” The Zero's cannon fire passed close but clean by Joe's tail.

“We passed within feet of each other and I could see row after row of victory markings on the fuselage near the canopy. The pilot was an old hand.” The Zero slammed into another hard turn and Joe turned too. “I got into the tightest turn I'd ever made.”

Joe surprised both himself and the Japanese pilot. “I got around as quickly as the Zero. I lined him up for a shot and got a burst into his engine.” The two planes were in close again. The Zero's engine quickly smoked and, just as quickly, the Zero pilot pulled up on his stick, trying to ram Joe's plane. Joe's 20-year-old eyes and instincts were on it. “I pulled my stick back and the Zero went by, just feet under me.”

Joe slammed his plane into another turn. “I thought ‘He's smoking, he's dangerous. I've got to kill him before he kills me.'” Joe expected his opponent to be level, but the Zero pilot, newly respectful of his opponent, this time flipped over on his back and dove.

“The Zero was getting away. I pulled the Wildcat's nose up and tried to get a lead on him -- like aiming out ahead of a flock of quail -- to squeeze off a long gun burst. But then I saw two other Zeros cutting in on the dance to protect their leader.” Joe now switched tactics, lining up the Zero coming in from the left. “I gave him some lead and fired a burst. The burst sieved him but nothing more.”

Alone and outnumbered, Joe decided it was time to get out. “The two Zeros followed, firing their cannons, but the Wildcat could dive as fast as a greased safe. There was no way they'd catch me.”

Finally, Joe saw the Zeros break off, return to their crippled leader and pop back into the cloud deck. “I looked around to see if there were anymore fat Vals hanging around. I found two heading back into the clouds. I banked their way, gunned the engine and chased them for a few minutes. I couldn't catch them, so I raised the Wildcat's nose, lobbed a few rounds and turned back.”

When Joe looked around, there wasn't an airplane in the sky. “It was a strange feeling. One second the sky was full of airplanes and all these things were happening. The next I was in the sky all by myself. No friends, no enemies. I felt like the loneliest guy in the world.”

Lonely no more Joe -- welcome to the Hall!

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© 2005 D.L.Sears & Associates, Inc. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.