Clayton Fisher has a friend named Roy Russell who served in the same bomb group, Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8), who is writing a book and is using a photo of Fisher and himself for the cover. Before the war Fisher and Russell went to Army maneuvers in Columbia, South Carolina in a biplane. The German Stukas were going crazy in France so the Army Air Forces started training more heavily. They did not do much training there. All they did there was practice flathatting [Annotator's Note: flathatting is military slang for flying very low to the ground]. They had their picture taken after their maneuvers with a third guy. In 1955, in Pensacola, a Marine officer and his wife, a Hawaiian singer named Emma Veary, came to visit Fisher. They had a luau that lasted a full 12 hours. None of his neighbors complained because the music was too good. Fisher also met Veary's mother when they went to watch her daughter perform. Fisher lived in Florida from 1943 to 1945. It was too hot for Fisher in South Florida. Fisher was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, about 40 miles south of Madison. His father had lost the farm in a mini depression that hit the area in the mid 1920s. When Fisher was about four years old he was standing on the front lawn and saw a big shape fly past the house. It was a Curtiss JN4 Jenny biplane and the pilot was barnstorming to get people to come out to a cow pasture to buy rides. It scared Fisher so bad he almost ran through a glass door. Later, his father took him out to the cow pasture. He thought the propellers were arms. Fisher could not figure out why the passenger rode in the front seat. Fisher did not ride in it but he built a lot of model airplanes. After Lindbergh landed in Paris everyone started calling their dogs Lindy. Lindbergh came through on a trip once. One 4 July Fisher went on a blimp ride and got to fly in several old aircraft.

Clayton Fisher planned to join the Army Air Corps until a friend of his joined the Navy as an aviator. Fisher applied after two years at a small college but the Navy did not recognize the college so Fisher transferred to the University of Wisconsin. He took a hodgepodge of classes. By the time Germany invaded Norway they all knew they would soon be getting into the war. Fisher applied again and was sent to Jacksonville for flight training. He arrived in January 1941 but they did not do any practice flying for the first month because the weather was too bad. They did not start flying until March. Freshly graduated pilots were made instructors. Fisher got many harsh grades in basic training. When he took his check flight he did not do well but the check pilot told him he would help him out. This helped him in the long run because he learned a great deal from that check pilot. Fisher was sent to carrier training at Opa Locka, Florida. He went to Norfolk after training and joined a new air group on the USS Hornet (CV-8). Pearl Harbor disrupted their timetable. They were sent on a shakedown cruise to look for submarines in the Atlantic. After they returned to base, Fisher was ordered to stay on ship for several extra days. This annoyed him because he had a girl in town but when he reported for duty he discovered that they were loading B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] onto the Hornet. Fisher had no idea what was going on and he only later realized that it was a test flight for the Doolittle Raid. Fisher and his wife were waiting to get married. The Hornet was waiting to escort the first troop transport convoy to the Panama Canal. Fisher's father died unexpectedly during this time and he was allowed to return home for a bit. He got married and then returned to duty. Fisher's wife sent him to the commissary for groceries and planned to meet him on the dock in the afternoon. By the time she arrived the Hornet was gone. The ship sailed with no advance notice. After leaving port, the Hornet went on antisubmarine patrols. Fisher got his first pitching deck landing during a storm. Even after Pearl Harbor they were still using the SBC Helldiver [Annotator's Note: Curtiss SBC Helldiver dive bomber] biplane. The first time Fisher flew out of sight of land he was in the back seat of a Helldiver and panicked as land disappeared. They landed at Howard Field [Annotator's Note: an Army Airfield in the Panama Canal Zone]. There is a mountain at the end of the strip and Fisher caught a downdraft and nearly crashed into the ground. They got off of the ship as the ship went through the Panama Canal. Coming aboard, Fisher went in fast because there was not any wind. After making contact he thought his landing gear had collapsed. He kept moving and thought he was going to go over the port side. He managed to stop the plane and he noticed the crew laughing at him. He looked behind him and saw the tail hook and tail wheel back on the deck because his landing had gutted his aircraft. Fisher discovered that the armor plating on the tanks had caused the problem. While on the base, Fisher saw the Army's P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightening fighter aircraft] fighter planes and once again questioned why he joined the Navy.

Clayton Fisher volunteered to fly an SB2A Brewster [Annotator's Note: Brewster SB2A Buccaneer scout bomber] and lead flight of other SB2As to Memphis where they were to be used for training. They landed at Montgomery Field to refuel but couldn't because of an air show. They continued on to Memphis but they did not know they were not supposed to go there. They were not allowed to land in Memphis because they were modifying B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] there. As they approached Memphis it was overcast. There was debris all over one of the runways. Every time they tried to land they received a red light but they were low on fuel so eventually they ignored the light and landed anyway. An irate lieutenant colonel came out and started shouting, calling the landing the worst disaster he had seen since Panama. Fisher broke the ice by telling the colonel that he had been there. Fisher had nothing to do for the rest of the trip up to San Diego. When they arrived there they traded in the biplanes for some battered SBDs [Annotator's Note: Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber]. There was an airfield called Brown Field right next to the border with Mexico and the men went out to get a FAM ride [Annotator's Note: famiarization flight]. Fisher rode in the back seat of an SBD. When he got there he looked down and saw two planes that were cracked up. One pilot had died and the other lost an eye and had been thrown out of the Navy. They ended up with about eight hours of FAM rides. They never got any dive bombing training. Women always knew where the ships were. Fisher's wife had driven the car across Texas then hopped on a train to San Diego. Fisher met his wife at the train station. He had to be back on the ship by eight that night so they could head for Alameda, California to pick up Doolittle's [Annotator's Note: then Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle] bombers. The men did not know about this. Fisher got to spend eight hours with his new wife. The women also heard that the men were heading to Alameda and many of them hopped on the last ferry. Some of them drove up the coast and arrived in San Francisco. Fisher got off on the first night. He was not supposed to get off the second night. Some doctor was visiting and bought everybody drinks at the Top of the Mark and took them down to the Palace Hotel and bought them dinner. Fisher got on a liberty boat around four the following afternoon and heard the squadron executive officer [Annotator's Note: the executive officer of Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8)] tell a kid that he was not going ashore. Fisher did not know what the kid did to lose his liberty but he took advantage of it and got off the ship both nights. Fisher's wife was waiting for him. The following morning they loaded the B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium Bomber] onto the deck [Annotator's Note: of the USS Hornet (CV-8)] and sailed out to sea. After a couple of hours underway they told the crew what was happening. The attack took place on 18 April [Annotator's Note: 18 April 1942] and Fisher sent a letter to his wife talking about why 18 April was so important to him. They had gotten married on 18 February. This made it through the censors and it told his wife that Fisher was involved in the Doolittle Raid. They put cots in their rooms to quarter the Army Air Corps pilots. Fisher spoke a lot with the pilots. The pilots were not worried about the mission. They were most worried about taking off. Fisher reassured the pilots by stating that he had seen B-25s taking off from the Hornet before and that they performed better than the Navy's planes. No one believed him. They had a poker hall on the ship and some of the Navy's more noted cardsharps took them for all their money while they were on the ship [Annotator's Note: USS Hornet (CV-8)]. They returned the money before the Army pilots left. Fisher was up on the catwalk when the planes launched. The sea was rough. Water was coming almost up to the flight deck. Doolittle took off perfectly. One guy went down below the bow and flew along the surface of the water before he was able to get the plane to a safe altitude.

They returned to Pearl Harbor but didn't stay long enough for Clayton Fisher to train. He still hadn't made any dives in the SBD [Annotator's Note: Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber]. From there they headed for the South Pacific. They missed the Battle of the Coral Sea. After missing the battle they headed back to Pearl Harbor. They didn't know what was up but they knew it was something big. Eight days before they reached Pearl Harbor all of the pilots were taken into the war room and told that intelligence had broken a Japanese code and learned that the Japanese were going to launch a major attack on Midway with maybe all six of the their carriers. The pilots were worried because the Lexington [Annotator's Note: USS Lexington (CV-2)] had been sunk, the Yorktown [Annotator's Note: USS Yorktown (CV-5)] had been crippled, and they did not think that the Hornet [Annotator's Note: USS Hornet (CV-8)] and Enterprise [Annotator's Note: USS Enterprise (CV-6)] would be enough to stop the attack. They had a lot of time to think on the way back to Hawaii. They landed at Ewa Field, a Marine base and spent two nights there while the ship was reloaded. They were restricted to base because they knew too much. They were given a few bottles of whiskey and some mostly good natured fights broke out. Fisher managed to save his logbook and remembers that a guy named Cason didn't fly that day. He went through the office and saved many of the logbooks by putting them in a green bag. Cason avoided getting wet by simply stepping from the deck of the Hornet to the bridge of a destroyer that had pulled alongside it. He met this man later on North Island and the man gave Fisher his logbook. They headed out to Point Luck. On 1 June [Annotator's Note: 1 June 1942] Fisher went on a 200 mile patrol. His engine was worn out and his plane started shaking once he hit 100 miles out. When Fisher landed back on the carrier he told the flight officer that he refused to ever fly that plane again. The assistant engineering officer volunteered to fly the plane. When they arrived at Midway it was eerily quiet. No one was moving around. Fisher wrote his mother and his wife a letter and told them that he knew they would win the war. He left the letter on the ship.

[Annotator's Note: Clayton Fisher served in the Navy as a Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber pilot in Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8) flying from the USS Hornet (CV-8).] The next morning they lined up to launch. The fighters were going to launch first then the SBDs would take off after them. Fisher was placed in the the group commander's wing. He was devastated because the group commander was a poor pilot. The commander wanted a plane on each wing and they would fly up high so he could direct the show. Just before they took off, the ship's chief photographer jumped up on Fisher's wing and took a picture of the flight deck. Fisher had a camera in the belly of his SBD so he could only carry a 500 pound bomb. Fisher joined up and they climbed. No one knows how high they were. It was very cold and they did not have state of the art oxygen masks. The masks would freeze to their faces and Fisher had to chisel the ice of his mask in order to remove it. There remains a big argument about which course the Hornet's air group took. In the ready room they gave them the location. The pilots had to work out their course and allow for the wind to make sure they did not miss the ships. The torpedo squadron deviated. Fisher always thought they went right and that they were south of them. Fisher saw a column of smoke from Midway. Someone wrote a book and stated in it that the fighter pilots got lost. Fisher disagrees with most of the book. Fisher's wingman claims that he never saw the smoke. Fisher was flying a loose wing on the other guy and he saw the smoke for a long time. McCluskey [Annotator's Note: then Lieutenant Commander Clarence Wade McClusky], the group commander, flew until he found a destroyer and then flew east to find the ships. All of the planes were ordered to get into a line. Fisher thought that was a stupid idea. The commander pointed down at Scouting 8 [Annotator's Note: Scouting Squadron 8 (VS-8)]. The other wingman was ordered to give a hand signal to the squadron below. Fisher broke off and dove down to join the squadron below. As he was trying to join up with them Fisher had difficulty getting close enough to them to give a hand signal. By the time he got within range the other pilot had already started making a 180 towards the Hornet. Eventually, Fisher broke off and thought that he had better go rejoin the group commander. By this time they were about ten miles apart as they had been flying in opposite directions. Fisher realized that he was completely alone in the area and feared that when the Zeroes [Annotator's Note: Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft] attacked they would come from the right. Fisher turned around and tried to rejoin the group returning to the Hornet but never caught up with them. He did eventually land on the Hornet. When Fisher returned he was told that no one else from the bombing and scouting squadrons had landed yet. Eventually the squadrons landed. The group commander landed alone, having gotten rid of both wingmen during the mission. Fisher thinks that he owes a lot to Wade McCluskey because he made the right decision.

That afternoon, Clayton Fisher and his squadron [Annotator's Note: Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8)] were launched again to attack the Hiryu. The Hornet's [Annotator's Note: USS Hornet (CV-8)] group was delayed while other aircraft were refueling. The Enterprise [Annotator's Note: USS Enterprise (CV-6)] launched its dive bombers as well as some from the Yorktown [Annotator's Note: USS Yorktown (CV-5)] that had landed there after the Yorktown was disabled. The planes from the Enterprise got there first and as the Hornet's crews approached they saw some flak. By the time they arrived the Hiryu had already been heavily damaged. The group commander switched them to cruisers. They went after the Japanese cruiser Tone. Fisher dove last because he had the camera. Fisher was later in Chicago for the dedication of Midway Airport and they hung an SBD [Annotator's Note: Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber] from the roof. He ran into another SBD pilot named Bud Merrill [Annotator's Note: Milford Austin Merrill flew SBD dive bombers with Bombing Squadron 3 (VB-3)] and they had breakfast together. Merrill had also taken part in Midway flying from the Enterprise. Fisher asked Merrill how many planes were lost. The Zeroes [Annotator's Note: Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft] had hit them hard. Merrill told him that they had lost at least four or five SBDs. Fisher always thought that they had only lost one. The Zeros were very aggressive in their attacks on the SBDs because if their ship was damaged the planes would have nowhere to go. Merrill's plane was so shot up it was pushed over the side. Fisher does not think he would have survived the battle if he had been the first to dive. When they got over the target, Fisher saw some sticks of bombs going off on the ship but he could not figure out what they were. When he returned to the ship he discovered that it was bombs from B-17s that were bombing the ships simultaneously. Fisher's bomb did not release and he had to pull out of his dive early. After pulling out, Fisher flew towards some clouds. The enemy ship opened fire on him but he was going so fast they were unable to hit him. Eventually his speed dropped off and he was able to shake his bomb loose. Fisher saw a lot of rafts in the water and assumes that many of them were Navy pilots. Fisher passed over the Yorktown on his way back to his ship. Admiral Spruance [Annotator's Note: Admiral Raymond Spruance] decided to head east because they were concerned about a Japanese surface action. The next day it was rainy and Fisher assumed that they were safe. They knew they had damaged all four Japanese carriers so he assumed that they would not have to fly.

[Annotator's Note: Clayton Fisher served in the Navy as a Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber pilot in Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8) flying from the USS Hornet (CV-8).] That afternoon, they got a contact report of ships in the area. They launched and flew until they were almost at their point of no return. They finally found a destroyer. When Fisher got over it, the ship was completely bracketed but no one had hit the ship. They got into position and the ship started firing on them. Fisher felt his plane jolt as began his dive. Fisher misjudged his attack angle and his bomb hit off the stern. As he came around he saw another SBD, piloted by Sam Adams, crash into the water. No one scored a hit on the ship. Many of them were inexperienced and the ship was moving fast. Fisher's gunner picked up the Hornet's ZB [Annotator's Note: YE-ZB "Hayrake" radio navigation beacon]. It was very weak but the signal from the Enterprise [Annotator's Note: USS Enterprise (CV6)] was strong. Fisher decided to land on the Hornet. He was the first to land. It was getting dark so the Hornet turned on a searchlight. Many of the Hornet's pilots did not get the radio signal. One guy was about to ditch when his radioman saw a light and they hit the wire on the deck with no fuel left. Another pilot ditched his aircraft and was picked up later on. Fisher got back to the ready room and thought that someone on the Japanese ship was calling the shots. The ship seemed to have changed direction. He was right. In 1991 Fisher and a couple other veterans learned that a Japanese sailor wanted to meet some pilots. The Japanese sailor and his wife flew to the United States. Don Adams, Fisher, and another man met the former sailor. The sailor's position was on the bridge and he was able to see the American planes coming down on his ship. The scariest thing Fisher has ever been a part of happened the morning after Fisher landed back on the Hornet. Battle stations was called as they picked up a flight of dive bombers coming at the Yorktown [Annotator's Note: USS Yorktown (CV-5)]. Fisher went into the ready room and waited for it to be over. He can only imagine how horrible it was for the sailors on the Japanese ship. The Japanese sailor wrote an article and told them what had happened during the attack and spoke about how they buried their dead that night. They all had dinner that night and they made the sailor an honorary naval aviator and pinned some wings on him. The Japanese ship was also at the Battle of Santa Cruz before being sunk off New Guinea. The sailor was seriously wounded there. He later invited Don Adams to visit him in Japan. He died of cancer a few years before this interview. On 6 June [Annotator's Note: 6 June 1942] they launched. The officer who gave the briefing, Gus Widhelm [Annotator's Note: then Lieutenant Commander William J. "Gus" Wihelm], guaranteed that he would knock out one of the cruisers. When they reached the target, Widhelm broke off from the formation. He made a solo run and nailed the cruiser right in the middle of the ship. They lost their first SBD pilot on that attack, Don Griswold. That afternoon they were launched again. When they arrived the scouting party was already attacking. Fisher saw a massive explosion on the ship and assumed the magazine was hit. Fisher saw a couple hundred people floating in the water as if they had abandoned ship. They were then ordered to shift focus to the destroyers and Fisher spotted one retreating that was loaded down with survivors from another ship. He dropped his bomb and hit in the fantail. He got credit for sinking the ship but it did not sink. The ship was repaired and returned to Wake Island. Reports claimed that there was tremendous suffering on that ship and Fisher at first thought that that was a good thing because he had friends from his time in the National Guard before joining the Navy who had been caught in the Philippines. Now he regrets it to some extent. That was the end of the battle. Fisher had flown 17 hours and had taken part in every launch they did during the Battle of Midway. Fisher remembers going down to the mess and seeing the damage. Each unit had their own table and the torpedo table was empty and the fighter table was almost empty. Fisher went down into VT-8s ready room and inventoried the personal effects of several members of VT-8. Fisher found it very depressing but it got worse when they reached Diamond Head, Hawaii.

[Annotator's Note: Clayton Fisher served in the Navy as a Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber pilot in Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8) flying from the USS Hornet (CV-8).] Every squadron had their own table in the ready room and everyone went on liberty with their own people. Any time spent outside of the ready room was usually spent eating or sleeping. People are surprised that he did not know someone who served on the Hornet. He has met several people from the ship at reunions. [Annotator's Note: Fisher talks about several of the men that he has stayed in contact with through the years.] After Midway, Fisher did not understand the ramifications of the battle but he knew they had killed Japan's varsity team, as far as their pilots were concerned. He does not know how many of the Japanese pilots survived when they were often left out to die. In 1944 Fisher was in Melbourne training pilots in gunnery in F6Fs [Annotator's Note: Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter aircraft]. His superiors wanted 1,500 new pilots from the flight school. Fisher would go up and fly maneuvers and then land and instruct the students. They flew three flights in the morning, three in the afternoon. Fisher noticed many of the students had trouble hitting their targets. In 1945 he saw in Life magazine that many of his students had made ace and he had a chance to talk with one of them. By the end of the war, the technological gap had widened considerably and the pilots were not impressed with their accomplishments. Fisher had a lot of hours in the F6F and flew 80 missions in Korea in an F4U-B Corsair. In 1943, Fisher was stationed in Glenview, Illinois. He wanted to fly an F4U-1 one day so he told the flight officer that he wanted to fly it. Fisher flew it 90 miles to the north and flathatted his home town. He almost missed the town but he found a mountain and that guided him. He followed Rock River and jumped over three bridges before flying around the town. Later, on 4 July, Fisher called his mother and then took an SBC [Annotator's Note: Curtiss SBC Helldiver dive bomber] to meet her at an airport north of the town. In order to get into the airfield, Fisher made a carrier style landing. His grandfather met him as he landed and started asking him questions about the plane. In order to take off Fisher had to back up all the way to the fence. He barely got up to speed before running out of room and climbed up to 10,000 feet before making a 70 degree practice dive on the hangar. The fairgrounds was right between the airport and his home and Fisher flew low right over the grandstand. Fisher later got a letter from his mother that his antics had made a lot of people angry because he disrupted an Army demonstration with his maneuvers and everyone started watching the sky instead. Fisher's sister lived 20 miles east of their home town with her husband and Fisher's antics were reported in her local newspaper. The F4U-1 was very light but the cockpit was very far back and Fisher always thought he was flying a locomotive.

[Annotator's Note: Clayton Fisher served in the Navy as a Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber pilot in Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8) flying from the USS Hornet (CV-8).] After Midway, they all returned to Pearl Harbor. When they got back, the training suddenly became intense. They started practice bombing moving targets. One pilot was killed during a practice dive. They stayed there for a couple months and E.B. Tucker, the former executive officer, had become the commanding officer [Annotator's Note: of Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8)]. On their first patrol after leaving Pearl Harbor, a fire broke out in Tucker's cockpit and he and his rear seat gunner had to bail out. They were not recovered because they did not have chute packs at the time. When Gus Widhelm heard about what had happened he flew straight back and picked up extra rafts. When they arrived at Pearl Harbor the Guadalcanal campaign was just beginning. They asked for volunteers to fly dive bombers at Guadalcanal but Fisher had no desire. He would rather die on the ship in his clean white sheets. When they first arrived, a guy who knew some Japanese put out a journal. He did a story about the Australian coast watchers. Fisher has a book about them and he finds it interesting that they would watch the Japanese planes heading for Guadalcanal and then heading back to base to count the difference. After some time down there, the Wasp [Annotator's Note: USS Wasp (CV-7)] joined them. Fisher was getting leery of staying in the same place for so long. They were not allowed to have movies on the hangar deck because there was a fear that the light would shine through the curtains. They decided to set up a projector in the wardroom instead. Shortly after starting a movie, they heard some noise and wondered what was happening. Battle stations was sounded. It had been a torpedo attack. Fisher and the others got out of the wardroom because it sat right over the aviation gas. There was a traffic jam in the passageways so it took Fisher a while to get into the ready room. Once there they received a teletype message that the O'Brien [Annotator's Note: USS O'Brien (DD-415)], one of their destroyers, had been hit. Fisher looked out and saw the O'Brien burning as the Hornet made haste to escape the area. They picked up some of the Wasp's aircraft. Fisher flew a brand new plane from the Wasp at Santa Cruz. All the paint had come off of their planes and they were down to the primer. They also had a new system of rollers for feeding the twin 30 caliber machine guns.

[Annotators Note: Clayton Fisher served in the Navy as a Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber pilot in Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8) flying from the USS Hornet (CV-8).] The Japanese decided to reclaim Guadalcanal and they brought their carrier task force from Truk to the area. For a while there was a chess game. Finally, Fisher was in the fighter ready room and saw a contact report from the teletype. Fisher stood on the flight deck enjoying a beautiful night sky, wishing they could launch and surprise the Japanese. One of the admirals considered it but the order never came. They launched the next morning. Fisher was scared of being hit on the flight deck. Eventually the order came to launch and just before they took off they were told that they were getting four fighters for protection. Fisher was in a flight of 16 and was in the tail position. As they were taking off, another carrier was reported and Fisher thought that he was on a suicide mission. They all did. Normally, when they took off, the strike leader would fly far ahead and then circle while everyone joined up on him. This time, as he was taking off another plane blew past him. Fisher had to burn a lot of fuel to get into formation. They climbed to about 8,000 feet and Fisher saw a flight of Japanese Zeros [Annotator's Note: Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft] and dive bombers above their formation. He was impressed with how pretty the planes looked in perfect formation. They did not see the American formation. Eventually they found some Japanese ships. Fisher thinks it was just a decoy force. Fisher spotted a couple of carriers and five destroyers. They had seven Zeros flying cover. Two American fighters were knocked out immediately and the other two retreated into the clouds. Fisher heard his gunner open fire when the Zeros made a pass at them. Fisher later read that the Japanese had picked them up on radar 70 miles out. In the meantime they tried to ram the flight leader, Gus Widhelm [Annotator's Note: then Lieutenant Commander William J. "Gus" Widhelm]. Widhelm raised his plane and the Japanese pilot flew under him. Fisher watched a Japanese pilot from the Shokaku make a high side run on Widhelm that shot up the engine. Widhelm went down and was later retrieved by one of his former trainees. A Japanese destroyer passed him but the sailors aboard just laughed at him. Trying to get the new commander into the lead position only screwed up the formation. Fisher got out of position and had to dive back down to get back in. The Japanese started firing on them and Fisher's roommate had to return to the ship after getting an aileron shot up. A couple other men were also shot down. Fisher's plane had its hydraulic system shot up. They reached the cruiser but Fisher did not have any dive brakes. He had to launch a straight dive and completely overshot and had to adjust. The flight got four hits on the ship. There is a story that one of the pilots returned to the ship with a piece of flight deck embedded in his cockpit.

[Annotator's Note: Clayton Fisher served in the Navy as a Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber pilot in Bombing Squadron 8 (VB-8) flying from the USS Hornet (CV-8).] A few of the dive bombers were trying to rendezvous after the attack but they were being harassed by a Zero [Annotator's Note: Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft]. A couple of the rear seat gunners were wounded and were only saved when the Zero ran out of ammunition. The Japanese pilot saluted them then flew off. Another Zero targeted Fisher's plane with his light machine guns but never used his 20mm cannons. Fisher's rear seat gunner almost shot their tail off firing at the enemy plane. Eventually a 20 millimeter slammed into the plane's transmitter. The concussion knocked the wind out of Fisher and he almost lost control of the plane before a picture of his family snapped him back to attention. Fisher looked out the window and saw the Zero flying on his wing. The Zero pilot backed off and at that point Fisher's gunner, George Ferguson, took over. Some of the links [Annotator's Note: the machine gun ammunition belt links] had broken but Ferguson got some links in and opened fire. Ferguson claimed that he scored several hits on the enemy plane. Whether he did or did not, the enemy plane left them alone. When they returned to the ship they patched up Ferguson. The doctors pulled seven slugs out of Ferguson's legs as well a piece of shrapnel from his ankle. Fisher was turning his head when the 20 millimeter hit the cockpit and he has a scar on his right shoulder. The shot missed the joint by an inch. His lifejacket was punctured and the instrument panel was torn up by the shell fragments. The plane's clock was knocked out and Fisher had to use his wristwatch. Fisher was bleeding heavily and started to worry about whether or not he would stay conscious long enough to land. He eventually got the bleeding stopped by tying his sock around his arm. After stopping the bleeding, Fisher was not exactly sure where they were and started to worry about their fuel level. Fisher decided to make a right turn so they could bail out and float into the Solomons on a raft if necessary. Fisher thinks that they were both too badly wounded to survive long in a raft. Fisher saw a Zero coming straight for them but they flew past each other without incident. Later, Fisher saw two Val dive bombers [Annotator's Note: Aichi D3A dive bomber] flying in the opposite direction. This confirmed for Fisher that he was heading in the right direction. Eventually he picked up the Hornet. She was dead in the water and listing heavily. Fisher instead looked over at the Enterprise [Annotator's Note: USS Enterprise (CV6)] in the distance. There was a massive traffic jam there as planes from both carriers tried to land. Fisher knew he would not make it and told the gunner to drop his guns. Fisher then saw the Juneau [Annotator's Note: USS Juneau (CL-52)]. The skipper of the Juneau got in trouble later because they were supposed to stay close to the Hornet but the skipper received a light signal and instead was positioned halfway between the two carrier task forces. Fisher flew around the Juneau and then ditched ahead of them. The SBDs did not have shoulder harnesses and many of the pilots that hit the water were injured by the bomb site. Fisher lowered his seat as far as he could and got the propeller as low as he could without losing control. As soon as the plane started to shake Fisher cut the throttle and that is the last he remembers for several minutes. When they hit the water Ferguson got out of the plane and set up the raft while trying to get Fisher out of the cockpit. The Juneau came alongside with a cargo net to fish them out of the water. Crewmen aboard the Juneau threw lines overboard and Fisher wrapped one around his waist. Ferguson tackled Fisher's legs and Fisher almost dislocated his arm. Fisher did not notice but his elbow joint was exposed. Fisher remembers that eventually they got a line to Ferguson and Ferguson climbed up the cargo net. Fisher was lifted up.

They [Annotator's Note: Clayton Fisher and his rear seat gunner George Fergusson] were taken to a sick bay in the bow [Annotator's Note: aboard the light cruiser USS Juneau (CL-52)]. A doctor put Fisher in a bed and treated his wounds with sulfur. The doctor diagnosed Fisher as being in shock and ordered him to stay in bed. Fisher had been in the air for a very long time and at this point needed to use the bathroom. He asked another injured sailor where the nearest bathroom was. It was at the top of a ladder near his bed. Fisher climbed the ladder and got nauseated from the exertion. Everyone on the deck was wearing armor and Fisher was on the deck in hospital clothes. Eventually the doctor came back, threw Fisher over his shoulder and put him back in bed. That night, the doctors gave Fisher and Ferguson sodium pentothal to knock them out while they dressed their wounds. Fisher woke up around three and the stuff had worn off. He had hemorrhaged during the night and his bed was covered in blood. The next morning Fisher was back up on the deck looking for the head. When Fisher told the doctor that the wounded sailor in the bunk next to his had told him that the head was up there the doctor looked over at the sailor and asked him why he had not told Lieutenant Fisher that the head was right behind his bunk. The sailor responded that that head was for enlisted men only. Fisher was eating in the wardroom a couple days later when another officer came in to ask him why he did not make a full 360 around the Juneau before hitting the water. When Fisher responded that he did not have enough fuel to do that the officer explained that he was on the verge of ordering a broadside before someone yelled out that it was an SBD [Annotator's Note: Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber]. A few days later Fisher's roommate from Jacksonville was picked up. They had met again in Pearl Harbor after training and his roommate had bemoaned that all the good guys were being killed. He was later killed making a run on a spar and when he fired his guns the plane blew up. When Fisher was getting ready to get off the ship he asked the captain, Lyman Swenson, why he stopped. Only destroyers were responsible for pulling men out of the water. Swenson just laughed. About six weeks later, the Juneau was sunk. Fisher spoke to a historian that followed the Juneau. Fisher and Ferguson were picked up in four minutes. After they were picked up, the Juneau went right back to fighting the Japanese.

Clayton Fisher thinks that the SBD [Annotator's Note: Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber] was the great equalizer. The Japanese had superior fighters and excellent torpedo planes with well trained pilots and good torpedoes. Fisher would not be here today if not for the thick armor plating and self sealing fuel tanks of the SBD as well as a rear gunner who never panicked. Some of the SBD crewmen claim that they shot down three Zeros. Fisher doubts that but believes that they shot down at least one. After leaving the Juneau [Annotator's Note: USS Juneau (CL-52)] Fisher went aboard the Solace [Annotator's Note: USS Solace (AH-5)]. They arrived at Noumea, New Caledonia and then they were put on the SS Lurline, a luxury ship converted into a troop transport for the war. Burn victims were being marched across the deck and some fresh troops for Guadalcanal watched the awful scene. Fisher and Fergusson were taken to the naval hospital. Fisher's wife called around until she found him. They went into town to look around. They had no clothes or money or pay accounts with which to buy them. As they were walking down the hall they saw a corpsman approaching with Fisher's wife with him. They left the hospital and Fisher returned the next day. He had no trouble walking so he had weekly doctor visits for six weeks. Fisher was able to spend Christmas in his home town. All of his friends had been drafted by this time and Fisher was one of the first people to return to the town who had been wounded. Fisher became something of a local celebrity for a time but didn't like it. He was sent to Fort Lauderdale for training as a flag waver [Annotator's Note: landing signal officer, or LSO]. From there he was sent to Glenview, Illinois as an instructor. They qualified 61 pilots in one day. Glenview had medical and pay accounts. When he arrived they had a backlog because of the cold weather. It was cold on Lake Michigan and they burned coal to stay warm. One night, Fisher was supposed to go aboard to bring in a TBF load of LSOs next day. Fisher was living in a room next to the stadium. Fisher could not buy an alarm clock in those days and he overslept. He was ticketed by the cops for speeding on the way to the base. When he arrived, the captain was leaving. A veteran from Fighter 8 [Annotators Note: Fighting Squadron 8 (VF-8)] had gone aboard the night before and he took Fisher's place. Fisher was supposed to go to a carrier but his wife had been very sick. His commander requested to have Fisher's orders changed and he was sent back to Florida.

Clayton Fisher spent the next two and a half years in the training command. Once, Fisher was chasing fighters and almost had a mid air collision. Fisher drilled the importance of staying in formation to the trainees because if one plane was not where it was supposed to be it could lead to a midair collision. He also drilled it into the trainees to count the planes so at the very least they would be on guard. Shortly after Fisher finished chewing out a rookie for getting out of position he was sucked back by the Gulf Stream and the engine quit on him. The water was glassy and Fisher hoped that he would skid instead of hitting. He put it down in the water but when he got out of the plane and into the raft he heard a hissing sound. Someone had not closed the raft's valve. The raft lost half of its CO2 before Fisher closed the valve. Just before dark another plane came by and started strafing near him to point out his position to a boat. When Fisher was pulled aboard the crew gave him half a pint of whiskey. He had not eaten anything all day and the whiskey got him very drunk. Some sailor stole his helmet but eventually they found it. A station wagon was sent to return Fisher to Melbourne, Florida. There were four Fishers on the base. His health records were at Vero Beach. They wanted information from it in case he was lost. Fisher stopped in Vero Beach to get the records and to visit his wife and new child. When he returned to Melbourne he was dragging his wet parachute bag. He got chewed out and was sent back to Vero Beach. Fisher was sent to a doctor who wanted to run some tests on him. Fisher refused and the doctor looked at his health records. The doctor recognized the name of the doctor on board the Juneau [Annotator's Note: USS Juneau (CL-52)]. Once they had a common connection all the other matters cleared themselves up.

Before that, while instructing in SB2As [Annotator's Note: Brewster SB2A Buccaneer light scout bomber], Clayton Fisher had one trainee that would not get the dive bombing correct. Fisher took this trainee up to 12,000 feet and then went into the steepest dive possible. The trainee panicked and screamed all the way down. Fisher got angry and jammed the landing gear down and only one wheel came down. Fisher spent two hours flying around and getting advice from the tower. While making one pass Fisher's engine quit. Fisher landed wheels up. His wife heard about it and headed to the base. As he came in to land his angle of approach made the crowd think he was coming straight for them and that incited a minor panic as people dove out of the way. Fisher eventually landed and the doctor that had told Fisher's wife about the event then came over and told her that it was Fisher in the plane but that he was fine. After getting out of the plane he never saw the trainee again. A little while later Fisher was flying a brand new F6F Hellcat [Annotator's Note: Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter aircraft]. Six weeks before, Fisher had read that once a pilot has reached a thousand hours they are likely to have had an engine failure. The flight instructors were sent to test fire the six .50s offshore. It was a cold morning so Fisher took off with the canopy closed. They went into a dive with all six guns firing and when Fisher pulled out of the dive his propeller died. The area was full of alligators and water moccasins so Fisher looked around and found a little emergency runway. When he got out of the airplane, no one noticed his absence. He got them on the radio and told them what happened. For a while Fisher was afraid of engines failing on him again but he got over it by becoming a night fighter pilot. They had two training shifts, one from eight at night to midnight and one from midnight to four in the morning. They flew 10,000 hours a month at this base. At Melbourne they were losing one pilot per 1,000 hours of flying. More pilots were killed in training than in combat. From there Fisher was stationed in Alaska and then went to a Navy school before being stationed in Washington DC. From there he was sent to Korea. Fisher made a short movie of some flying while in Korea. They were not allowed to use cameras until their commanding officer was replaced. Fisher has photos of various scenes from Korea that he then put into the short film he made.