The Battle of Leyte Gulf (23–26 October 1944) casts a long shadow. Considered the largest naval battle in modern history, it marked the end of the Imperial Japanese Navy as an effective fighting force and the beginning of the kamikaze campaign. However, this battle’s notoriety has overshadowed a key event that occurred less than two weeks earlier: the Formosa (present-day Taiwan) Air Battle, fought between 12 and 16 October.
Though still relatively unknown to general audiences of World War II history, the Formosa Air Battle was the single largest air-sea battle of the Pacific war. Japan committed a greater mass of airpower to this battle—1,425 aircraft over the course of one week—than anything the U.S. Navy had faced prior. In fact, the Japanese air force participating in the Formosa Air Battle was multiple times bigger than the carrier air formations encountered during the more well-known Battle of the Philippine Sea.1
For Fighting Squadron (VF) 18, a new squadron operating as part of the U.S. Navy’s Fast Carrier Task Force, Formosa was a deadly proving ground.2 Of its 47 original aviators, fewer than half had seen Japanese planes in the air prior to Formosa. An even smaller number had engaged in air-to-air combat. They did have one thing working in their favor, though: They had undergone extensive training under an instructor whose plane-handling skills were second to none.
His name was Cecil E. Harris. He was a quiet man, a South Dakota farm boy who left the family plot to become a schoolteacher during the prewar years. Though interested in flying from an early age, his mother had disallowed it “because it’s too dangerous.”3 He had to wait until college to enroll in civilian pilot training courses and subsequently undergo naval aviation cadet training. Once in the Naval Reserve, his fitness reports beamed that Harris was “an outstanding young pilot,” had “an exemplary manner,” showed “excellent judgment and initiative,” and was “well liked both by officers and men in the squadron.” He was leadership material through and through.4
Lieutenant Harris also was the only member of VF-18 who had been in a serious air battle before the squadron’s deployment on board the USS Intrepid (CV-11) in August 1944. He had been credited with destroying two Japanese A6M Zero fighters while stationed on Guadalcanal in the spring of 1943.5 Fortunately for “Fighting 18,” the squadron’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Edward “Murf” Murphy, valued experience and talent over considerations of rank. Harris was made flight officer and put in charge of training the squadron despite being outranked by several of his peers. According to Lieutenant (junior grade) Bryant “Wally” Walworth, Harris “worked his very fingers off” getting them up to speed.6
After more than six months of training in Hawaii and a month of combat operations on board the Intrepid, the greenhorns of Fighting 18 were as ready as they could be to undergo their trial by fire. There was a sense of foreboding about the Formosa operation. Lieutenant (junior grade) Charles “Punchy” Mallory wrote in his diary: “We received our briefing on Formosa and we may run into something big there.”7 Lieutenant Harris knew what was coming. It weighed on him. One of his responsibilities as flight officer was to draw up schedules for these operations, assigning men to what could be their last mission. Always leading from the front, Harris made sure to assign his division to the morning fighter sweep that would kick off the Formosa operation.
The Pacific sky was still “as black as the inside of your hat” when flight operations began at 0606 on 12 October.8 That did not seem to impede the Intrepid’s deck crews, who had the 16 F6F Hellcats assigned to the sweep airborne within 10 minutes. After grouping up with 20 additional fighters from nearby carriers in the Intrepid’s Task Group 38.2, the sweep proceeded beyond the destroyer screen out over the empty sea.
Bomb-laden Hellcats quickly made landfall, roaring over Formosa’s heavily forested coastline and mountainous interior. Skipper Murphy led the sweep into the Strait of Formosa before turning around to approach the target, Shinchiku (present-day Hsinchu), from the west. Dawn light twinkled off his Hellcats as they wheeled and turned together in tight formation like a flock of starlings.
The Intrepid’s fighters peeled off from the larger group to bomb the target first. Pilots pushed their sticks forward, bringing their planes into steep dives. Lieutenant Frank Hearrell’s view of the coastline and the mountains tunneled down until only Shinchiku remained. He was coming in hot over a group of six hangars arranged in an “L” shape between the barracks and runways. Guns on the ground threw a tremendous amount of flak up toward his Hellcat.
The volume and accuracy of these volleys forced several pilots to drop their bombs from as high as 5,000 feet. Hearrell hung in there just a bit longer. His bomb landed squarely in the middle of the hangar complex. He then pulled up to rejoin his division for the flight to the second target, Matsuyama. As the squadrons proceeded east together, all eyes were on the lookout for any metallic glint in the sky, any sign of movement signaling the start of battle.9
The weather worsened on approach to Matsuyama. The sweep flew between two cloud layers in a world of uniform gray that made navigation difficult. A little break in the cover appeared over Taien airfield. Radios crackled to life. Twin-engine aircraft flying at low altitude, reportedly both fighters and bombers, required immediate attention. Fighting 18 was assigned low cover and had principal responsibility for dealing with this threat.
Lieutenant Harris led two divisions down to intercept. With his radio giving him trouble, Harris had his second section leader, Lieutenant (junior grade) Bill Ziemer, spearhead the charge. Although their eight Hellcats were more than a match for their prey, eager pilots at intermediate and high cover began to leave their stations to get in on the action. A few minutes later, a dozen or so twin-engine aircraft were flaming wrecks littering the ground around Taien.10
Only one division from VF-8 of the USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) remained at high cover. They could see some of the action through the clouds below and were enjoying the spectacle when, suddenly, a downpour of Japanese army and navy fighters came raining from the clouds above. Reports indicated there were as many as 75 enemy fighters bearing down on the carrier planes, giving the enemy a numerical advantage of about 4:1. Fighting 8 had participated in defensive operations during the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 and had been in combat for months. This was without a doubt the biggest air battle they had ever seen.11
Fighting 18’s Lieutenant (junior grade) Chuck deMoss felt like he was watching a movie. Planes were scissoring past one another, firing, exploding, pilots bailing out. He turned toward an enemy fighter for a quick pass and zoomed by several men floating down in parachutes. DeMoss scored two victories during the 30 or so minutes of swirling aerial combat.12
Lieutenant (junior grade) Harold “Pop” Thune also downed two Japanese fighters. There was no time to celebrate, though. A third plane appeared on his tail, and its pilot seemed more adept than the others. Thune rolled out and dove away. Try as he might, he could not shake the Japanese fighter. Then he remembered a talk he had had with Lieutenant Harris in the Fighting 18 ready room. Thune had asked what to do if he could not escape pursuit. Most times, the Hellcat could outdistance an enemy fighter, but what if he was unable to get away?
Harris started speaking with his hands in the way fighter pilots do when words will not suffice. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Thune, putting one hand in front of the other in a straight line. His right hand, in front, represented an imperiled Hellcat, while his left hand, hovering a few inches behind, portrayed the Zero on its tail. He said, “Well, why don’t we do this—chop throttle, horse it straight up.”
Harris suddenly lifted his right hand up in a steep climb. He then brought his right hand back, smoothly sliding his left hand into the front position. He nosed the fingers on his right hand down until his hands were once more in line with one another. They had switched places. The Hellcat pilot would now be calling the shots from his enemy’s six. Thune had seen Harris execute this maneuver before and had practiced it himself in training. In a live-fire situation, though, it meant bleeding off precious speed with an enemy on his tail.
Thune’s gut told him to give it a shot. His left hand tugged back on the throttle control lever, rapidly slowing the flow of fuel to his roaring engine. As it sputtered in protest, he yanked back on the control stick with a white-knuckle grip. Thune’s view was suddenly all sky. He kicked hard on his right rudder pedal to skid the plane and held his breath for a moment. His pursuer zoomed by without scoring a hit. As soon as the Zero passed beneath him, Thune reversed the maneuver. His Hellcat sank like a stone until he was back in line with the Japanese fighter. He nudged the throttle forward and immediately felt his Hellcat accelerate. Thune started lining up his shot, but he had already won the duel. His opponent bailed out rather than continuing the engagement.13
Not everyone was as fortunate as deMoss and Thune. The men originally assigned to destroy the bombers were liable to be at the lowest altitudes when the enemy fighters pounced. Lieutenant (junior grade) Bill Ziemer and his wingman, Lieutenant (junior grade) Egidio “Dibat” DiBatista were part of that group. When the fight began overhead, they had to climb hard to join the fray. They poured on the coal, using full throttle to zoom from treetop height to 8,000 feet as quickly as possible. Something had to give, though. They rapidly lost speed as their engines worked to overcome gravity’s pull. By the time they reached the edge of the fight, they were indicating a mere 120 knots. They may as well have been standing still.
For the Japanese fighters streaming through the clouds above, these two Hellcats were easy prey. DiBatista felt his plane shudder violently as 7.7-mm machine guns and 20-mm cannon found their mark. Each detonation of a 20-mm shell felt like a giant hand forcefully shoving his plane to the side. Struggling in a daze to evade the assault and maintain control of his damaged plane, DiBatista lost sight of Ziemer. He desperately tried to find his section leader in the moments that followed. A Hellcat blew past him with a Zero in pursuit. Was that Ziemer? DiBatista got on the enemy’s tail. He succeeded in scaring him off, but the friendly plane was not his leader.14
Ziemer’s Hellcat had taken an even worse beating than DiBatista’s. After being forced to crash land in a clearing, Ziemer ran for the relative safety of the jungle. He hauled his raft and other equipment with him, bushwhacking for hours while evading enemy patrols. If he could get to the beach there was a chance he could alert aircraft overhead. He was not the only one shot down, either. Ensign Ralph DuPont and Lieutenant (junior grade) Wesley Keels also were missing in action.15
DiBatista was lucky by comparison. He managed to limp back to the fleet in his damaged Hellcat thanks to escort by his squadron mates Lieutenant (junior grade) James “Buck” Newsome and Lieutenant (junior grade) George Eckel. DiBatista’s guns were out of commission, Newsome’s were out of ammo, and Eckel had only one working gun left, but their opponents did not know that. Strength in numbers kept the Japanese fighters at bay.16
Landing aboard ship was out of the question given the state of DiBatista’s plane, and so was a water landing. DiBatista radioed his intent to bail out. He rolled his plane inverted, hoping he would be dumped from the wrecked cockpit, but even this proved too much for his Hellcat. It bucked as he tumbled into the open air, moving just enough to clip his left leg on the way out. The impact left him dazed but conscious. He opened his chute and floated down. DiBatista did his best to tread water despite the searing pain in his leg. It was fractured in multiple places.17
This was the single costliest mission flown by Fighting 18 during its deployment. Egidio DiBatista was too injured to continue flying. Three pilots were missing in action. Two of them, Ralph DuPont and Wesley Keels, later would be declared killed in action. Bill Ziemer survived brutal treatment as a prisoner of war until early August 1945, when he died from maltreatment at the notorious Camp Ofuna. The Intrepid’s Task Group 38.2, which included three fleet and two light carriers, lost only nine fighter pilots over the course of the Formosa Air Battle. This meant a third of all fighters lost by the task group between 12 and 16 October came from this single sweep—and all were from Fighting 18. Their assignment maintaining low cover had proved deadly.18
As rough as things had been for the Intrepid’s fighters, the situation was considerably worse for their enemies. Approximately one-third of Japan’s fighter strength on Formosa was wiped out by the initial sweep and strike on 12 October. Fighting 18 reported 25 enemy aircraft destroyed on the morning sweep alone, and 46 destroyed throughout the course of the day. Between the effort over Formosa on 12 October and subsequent days defending their carriers from attack off the island’s coast, U.S. Third Fleet’s aviators dealt Japanese airpower a blow from which it never recovered.19
Cecil Harris ended his 81-day combat tour on board the Intrepid as the Navy’s second-ranking ace of World War II. He scored 16 of his 24 victories by shooting down four planes on four separate missions (including Formosa), leading naval historian Barrett Tillman to call Harris “arguably the most consistently exceptional fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy.”20 Harris was even recommended for the Medal of Honor, with carrier task force commander Vice Admiral John “Slew” McCain referring to Harris as “one of the truly outstanding naval aviators of this war.”21
For his part, Harris was uninterested in—even seemed to actively dislike—the spotlight his exploits had earned him. When asked to explain his record to newspapermen, he would say things such as, “I was lucky—and I had the best wingman in the world.”22 His squadron mates disagreed about luck. They knew him as a pilot without peer. Some of them even pushed for Harris’ recognition right up to the end of their lives. Ultimately, it is likely that Harris, like so many other veterans, thought of the men who did not come home as the true heroes: Men such as Wesley Keels, Ralph DuPont and Bill Ziemer, who sacrificed everything to break the back of Japanese air power at Formosa.
1. Milan N. Vego, The Battle for Leyte, 1944: Allied and Japanese Plans, Preparations, and Execution (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013), 164–65; and H. P. Willmott, The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 64.
2. This unit was the second to be designated VF-18 and is wholly separate from the first VF-18 in terms of its lineage and roster.
3. “Navy Flier from S. Dakota Has 24 Jap Planes to Credit,” Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 January 1945.
4. Reports on the Fitness of Officers, Cecil E. Harris Collection, Northern State University Archive & Special Collections, Beulah Williams Library.
5. Primary source documents regarding this engagement give Harris credit for a single kill, though secondary sources are in overwhelming agreement that this was later changed to two. Cf. Thomas Wright Jr. email, 2; Fighting 27 History, 7; and Unofficial E. C. Simmons Diary, 6, Cecil E. Harris Collection, Beulah Williams Library.
6. Bryant L. Walworth, personal diary, courtesy of Lee Walworth, 62.
7. Charles Mallory, personal diary, courtesy of Woody Aurentz, 19.
8. Commander, Air Group 18, War History, 13.
9. Personal account of Frank C. Hearrell Jr., courtesy of Chris Cox; and CAG-18, AARs, Operations against the Ryukyu Islands, Formosa, Philippines, and the Japanese Fleet, 10–30 October 1944, 61, RG 38, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, MD.
10. CAG 18, AARs, 10–30 October 1944, 62, RG 38, NARA; and Captain Cecil E. Harris, interview, 7 August 1968, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) sound archives collection.
11. CAG-8, AARs, Operations Against the Ryukyu Islands, Formosa & the Philippines, 10–22 October 1944, 93–101.
12. Charles W. deMoss, oral history, Collection of the Intrepid Museum, OHP #140, transcript, 18.
13. Harold Thune, oral history, Collection of the Intrepid Museum, OHP #125, transcript, 17.
14. CAG 18, AARs, 10–30 October 1944, 63; and Edward H. Sims, Greatest Fighter Missions of the Top Navy and Marine Aces of World War II (New York: Harper, 1962), 162–64.
15. Information about Bill Ziemer’s experience comes from the Ziemer family, letter from Mrs. L. C. Ziemer to her son, Arthur R. Ziemer, which includes the account of Lieutenant William Davidson Jr., an aviator held in the cell next to Ziemer at Camp Ofuna.
16. Undated Letter from Egidio DiBatista to James M. “Buck” Newsome, courtesy of Kent Newsome.
17. CAG 18, AARs, 10–30 October 1944, 63.
18. Commander, Task Group 38.2, Action Report, 6 October–3 November 1944, 36, RG 38, NARA..
19. David C. Evans, ed., The Japanese Navy in World War II: In the Words of Former Japanese Naval Officers, 2nd ed (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017), 350.
20. Barrett Tillman, Hellcat Aces of World War II (London: Osprey, 1996), 57.
21. Documentation comes from a petition to reconsider Harris for posthumous award of the Medal of Honor, from the Cecil E. Harris Collection, Beulah Williams Library.
22. “Navy Flier from S. Dakota Has 24 Jap Planes To Credit,” Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
