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John “Davy” Crockett was trained as a navigator by Pan Am in mid-1941 because the USAAF did not have its navigator school in operation. Davy was assigned to the 36th Bomb Squadron of the 19th Bomb Group flying the new B-17C Flying Fortress. Davy found that most Air Corps pilots were used to doing their own navigating, so his job would be easy. Davy experienced a crash in a B-17 while training, but the crew walked away from the wreck. In late 1941 his crew was informed that they would be flying to Clark Field in the Philippines. On December they left Albuquerque and flew to Hamilton Field in California. They received a briefing on expected weather and left on the evening of December 6 for their first stop at Hickham Field, Oahu Hawaii. Flying into the darkness over the vast Pacific, the pilot for the first time in Crockett’s career turned the navigation over to Davy. Realizing that the Hawaiian Islands were only small dots on the charts of the vast Pacific, and that his aircraft would have little fuel reserves left when it arrived, sent chills up Crockett’s spine. As dawn broke Davy saw lots of islands where there were not suppose to be any. His panic subsided when he realized that they were only clouds. The pilot, Earl Cooper, came on the intercom at that moment to ask for an ETA. As Davy responded, the gunners in the back came on the intercom to report a large formation of aircraft about ten miles north of their position. They must be Navy aircraft. Minutes later they had descended to about 1200 feet when eight fighter aircraft came straight at them with their guns blazing. As the aircraft flew bye the flight engineer, Jesse Broyls, yelled out, “Rising Sun !” The zeros reformed behind the unarmed B-17, and as Cooper dove the lumbering giant towards the wave tops, Crockett could hear the thump of bullets hitting his plane. The No. 2 engine was hit and Cooper shut it down. Rounding Diamond Head at about 300-feet the crew saw smoke and fire everywhere, and Japanese planes all over the sky. They passed over Hickham Field at about 1000-feet, realizing that this was no time and place for a landing. They turned towards Ford Island and passed directly over the USS Arizona minutes after the ship had exploded. Crockett’s B-17 now became a target for nervous anti-aircraft gunners on the ground, and the B-17 had its No. 4 engine shot out. Cooper prepared the crew to bail out, but he then saw an opportunity to bring the big bird into Wheeler Field. He came straight in and belly-landed the B-17 with almost no fuel left. The plane slid to a stop on the turf just short of a group of P-40s. The entire crew got out of the B-17 and ran for cover in a patch of nearby woods. The B-17s on the flight from the mainland were scattered all over the island, with most of them seriously damaged. Fortunately, there were only two casualties, a flight surgeon who was killed and a bombardier who was injured when they were strafed while running from their plane. Crockett would survive a third crash in another B-17 on December 25th when he would spend six days in a life raft.
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