On 2 September 1944, a 20-year-old US Navy pilot named George Herbert Walker Bush flew his TBM Avenger into the flak over Chichijima, a small Japanese-held island in the Bonin chain north of Iwo Jima. His target was the island’s radio station. He hit it, and was shot down.

Bush was rescued. Eight other American airmen who came down near Chichijima were not. What happened to them was hidden for decades, and it became one of the darkest war-crimes cases of the Pacific war.

A post from @historyphotographed has brought the story back to a large audience this week. It is broadly right, but it collapses months of events into one day, and that detail matters to the families of the men involved.

The Attack on the Radio Station

Bush flew with Torpedo Squadron 51 from the light carrier USS San Jacinto. Chichijima mattered because of its radio and radar stations, which warned the Japanese home islands of incoming American raids. On 2 September the squadron’s Avengers went in against the radio station through heavy anti-aircraft fire.

Bush’s aircraft was hit during the dive. He pressed on, released his bombs on the target, and turned out to sea before ordering his two crewmen to bail out.

Only Bush survived. Radioman Second Class John Delaney got out, but his parachute failed. Lieutenant (junior grade) William “Ted” White, the squadron’s gunnery officer, who had asked to fly along that day, did not get out of the aircraft. Bush struck the tail as he jumped, came down in the sea, and climbed into a small inflatable raft while other American aircraft kept Japanese boats away from him. After about four hours the submarine USS Finback, stationed off the islands as a lifeguard for downed aircrew, surfaced and pulled him aboard. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Correction: Not Nine Pilots on One Mission

The post says nine American pilots took off on 2 September 1944, and that the eight who came down with Bush that day were captured. That is not what happened. The nine were airmen who survived being shot down during the repeated American raids on Chichijima, not a single formation. Bush’s own crew died with his aircraft. The eight men who fell into Japanese hands were Navy and Marine Corps aircrew brought down in separate attacks on the island. Bush was the only one of the nine to be rescued.

Their names were Lloyd Woellhof, Grady York, James “Jimmy” Dye, Glenn Frazier Jr., Marvell “Marve” Mershon, Floyd Hall, Warren Earl Vaughn and Warren Hindenlang.

What Happened on Chichijima

The prisoners were beaten and tortured, then executed, most by beheading, on the orders of the island’s senior army officer, General Yoshio Tachibana. Officers then ate parts of the bodies of four of the men. Major Sueo Matoba was among those most directly involved. The accounts come from the post-war investigation and trial, and were brought to a wide audience by James Bradley’s 2003 book Flyboys.

After the war a US military commission on Guam tried Tachibana, Matoba and other officers and men. Because neither military nor international law at the time specifically covered cannibalism, the charges included murder and “prevention of honorable burial”. Tachibana, Matoba and Captain Yoshii were among those sentenced to death and hanged; others received prison terms.

The proceedings were classified. Bill Doran, who attended the 1946 trial on Guam, signed repeated secrecy oaths and kept silent until documents from the case were declassified in 1997.

Why the Story Still Matters

It is easy to tell this as a story about a future president’s lucky escape. It is also the story of eight young aircrew whose fate was deliberately hidden from their families for half a century, and of the lifeguard submarines and escort fighters whose job was to get downed airmen out of the water before the enemy could reach them. On 2 September 1944 that system worked for George Bush. For the other eight, it did not.

Bush flew 58 combat missions in the Pacific. He spoke about Delaney and White, the two men he lost, for the rest of his life.

Sources: US Navy and National Archives photo records; History.com; CBS News; TogetherWeServed; SOFREP; Wikipedia (Chichijima incident); James Bradley, Flyboys: A True Story of Courage (2003); George and Barbara Bush Foundation; Wikimedia Commons.