Flotsam and Jetsam - St. Louis Edition

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations from just outside St. Louis.

So I'm just outside St. Louis (on the Missouri side) and to get here I went from Boston to Chicago to St. Louis on my flights. The flight plan for Chicago actually took us up into Canada and then over Lake Michigan. Just as we were getting above the water of Lake Michigan, Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald came on my MP3 player. I got worried that this could be a bad omen and I couldn't remember if the song took place on Lake Michigan or Lake Erie. I just remember that it was about the big lake they all called Gitche Gumee. I'm pretty sure the song took place on Lake Erie... I landed in Chicago at O'Hare International. I got a chance to take a picture of Butch O'Hare's plane. I've written about what a hero Butch O'Hare was in the past. I'm surprised that no movie has ever been made about Butch O'Hare's life... I found an interesting blog that I'll be adding to my blogroll when I get a moment - Bulls n Balls - check it out if you have a minute...

Edward "Butch" O'Hare

(Today would have been Butch O'Hare's 93rd birthday. Here is something I had posted in the past on Medal of Honor Winner O'Hare.)

Edward "Butch" O'Hare became a flying legend when he almost single handedly saved the USS Lexington from being destroyed by Japanese bombers. Here's how Acepilots.com described the action:

O'Hare and his wingman spotted the V formation of bombers first and dived to try to head them off. The other F4F pilots were too far away to reach most of the enemy planes before they released their bombs. As if this weren't bad enough, O'Hare's wingman discovered his guns were jammed. He was forced to turn away. Butch O'Hare stood alone between the Lexington and the bombers.

O'Hare didn't hesitate. Full throttle, he roared into the enemy formation. While tracers from the concentrated fire of the nine bombers streaked around him, he took careful aim at the starboard engine of the last plane in the V and squeezed his trigger. Slugs from the Wildcats six .50-caliber guns ripped into the Japanese bomber's wing and the engine literally jumped out of its mountings. The bomber spun crazily toward the sea as O'Hare's guns tore up another enemy plane. Then he ducked to the other side of the formation and smashed the port engine of the last Japanese plane there.

One by one he attacked the oncoming bombers until five had been downed. Commander Thach later reported that at one point he saw three of the bombers falling in flames at the same time. By now Thach and the other pilots had joined the fight. This was lucky because O'Hare was out of ammunition.

For his heroic actions, O'Hare was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In 1943 O'Hare died in combat as the result of what may or may not have been friendly fire.

Some other points of interest about Edward "Butch" O'Hare:

- Graduated from Naval Academy at Annapolis.
- His father was a successful businessman who was gunned down by Al Capone
- In 1949 Orchard Field airport in Chicago was renamed after O'Hare (O'Hare International Airport)
- From the airport website:

In his Congressional Medal of Honor winning flight to save the U.S.S. Lexington, Butch O'Hare flew an F4F-3 Wildcat. The Wildcat was an extremely basic flying machine - it had hand-cranked landing gear made primarily of bicycle chains and sprockets, manually-charged guns, vacuum-powered wing flaps, a simple electrical system, and no hydraulics. Despite its simple design, it was a tough plane with a high degree of pilot survivability in crashes. The Wildcat earned for the Grumman Aircraft Factory, where it was built, the nickname "The Iron Works."

An original F4F-3 Wildcat was recovered from Lake Michigan by the United States Navy and donated to the Air Classics Museum. The plane was restored to replicate the one flown by Butch O'Hare. Sponsored by the City of Chicago and McDonald's Corporation, the recovered F4F-3 Wildcat is exhibited in Terminal Two at the West end of the ticketing lobby to honor the extraordinarily heroic feats of O'Hare International Airport's namesake.