By Patrick J. Chaisson
A thousand questions flashed through Lieutenant Cy Lewis’s mind as he spotted the pair of German Messerschmitt Me-109 fighters banking in to attack him. What’s my airspeed, altitude, direction? Is Healy awake back there in the gunner’s seat? How can I maneuver this crate around to give him a clear shot?
Lewis then spied the light cruiser USS Boise 6,000 feet below him and about six miles out to sea. Shoving the nose of his Curtiss SOC “Seagull” scout-observation aircraft down into a steep power dive, the naval aviator made a run for Boise’s protective antiaircraft umbrella.
His aging biplane was no match for its German pursuers. Heavily armed, highly agile, and 200 miles per hour faster than their quarry, both Me-109s poured fire into Lewis’s Seagull. Two 20mm explosive shells punctured the SOC’s lower left wing, sending hot shrapnel into its fuselage but luckily missing the crew. Return fire from Radioman Healy’s puny .30-caliber machine gun ceased after a few bursts when that weapon jammed.
Cy Lewis knew he and Healy would never reach their ship. Still, he had to let someone on the Boiseknow what was going on. “Two Messerschmitts on my tail,” he shouted into his radio. “Prepare to pick me up!”
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In the above story, in the paragraph above the third picture it says, “Trigger-happy Navy gunners also contributed to the tragic death of Aviation Ordnanceman Mackey M. Prutlipac, who fell from the rear seat of Ensign Joseph H. McGuinness’s OS2U while it attempted to evade this so-called friendly fire.”
This is not quite the same way that Mr. McGuinness, my brother-in-law’s father, told it to me. He told me that “Mack”, as he called him, had navigated for him the whole way back to their ship, and it was then that he found out that Mack had been hit and had died, when Mack fell out of the plane when they got back to their ship. I do not know if the plane was on board the ship yet or if it was still in the water waiting to be hoisted aboard by crane.