Butch O'Hare

He was a fat boy, shy, bookwormish, overfond of baker's buns. His father, a St. Louis lawyer, christened him Edward H. O'Hare. But the neighborhood dubbed him "Butch." Hard-muscled, no longer fat, he was still "Butch" when he took his diploma at Annapolis, then went on to Pensacola to train as a U.S. Navy flyer.

He was a lieutenant, a fighter pilot attached to the carrier Lexington, when the Japs came over on a February day in 1942. Alone against nine bombers roaring in for a kill, Butch O'Hare shot down five, damaged a sixth, scattered the remnant. The Navy and the U.S. were proud. Summoned from the South Pacific to Washington, Butch O'Hare got the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Roosevelt for "one of the most daring, if not the most daring, single action in the history of combat aviation." Of his exploit, Butch only said: "There wasn't much to do but shoot 'em."

He was a lieutenant commander when the fleet sallied out to take the Gilberts last month. Butch O'Hare "hellcatted" the island; he was the first to bring a carrier plane down on conquered Tarawa. A few nights later, off the Marshalls, Jap torpedo planes came over his flat-top again. Butch led the fighters from the deck. Flares shredded the darkness. "You take the side you want," he radiophoned his wingman. "I'll take the port," answered the wingman. "Roger!" said Butch. Tracers glowed around his plane. He sheered off, brought down one Jap, his ninth, then dropped into the night. Butch O'Hare was "missing in action."

Said the task-force commander, Rear Admiral Arthur W. Radford: "Butch, with accompanying planes, saved my formation from certain torpedo hits. I am recommending him for a second Congressional Medal of Honor." Said fellow pilots: "Butch did it twice."

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