John Philip "Jock" Henebry (1918-2007)
War hero a master of 'skip bombing'
Flew 219 missions in the Pacific during WWII
John Henebry, 89, a retired Air Force major general, died September 30, 2007.
A biplane landing in a field near his boyhood home near Plainfield, Illinois led to a life-long desire to fly.
After graduating from Notre Dame in 1940, he joined the Army Air Corps. At first, he flew missions along the US coast looking for submarines, but was transferred to the 3rd Bomb Group of the 5th Air Force based out of Australia in 1842.
Flying A-20s and B-25s, he mastered a low-altitude approach called "skip bombing" where released bombs skipped along the water like flat rocks until they slammed into an enemy ship. This greatly increased the odds of hitting the target, but was very difficult to do.
They would start firing their machine guns a mile out, launch the four-bomb payload, and hopefully gain enough altitude to miss hitting the ship themselves.
One time, his plane was badly damaged by enemy fire after sinking two supply ships. He lost power and rudder control, threw all unnecessary equipment overaboard and flew 300 miles before crashing near an Allied-controlled beach. He and his crew were picked up by a PT boat and then boarded a plane, arriving back at base just an hour behind schedule.
He was at the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri.
In 2002, he wrote about his experiences in "The Grim Reaper--At Work in the Pacific Theater."
Oct. 3, 2007 Chicago Tribune "War hero a masterof 'skip bombing' by Trevor Jensen
Quite an Amazing Life and Another One of the "Greatest Generation."
No comments:
Post a Comment