Joe Eisenhuth: Pilot earned honors in attack on Japanese aircraft carrier

By Chris Rosenblum

Before Joe Eisenhuth's eyes, the Japanese aircraft carrier grew larger.

Down he rocketed in his SB2C Helldiver dive bomber toward the Zuiho as she turned sharply in Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. Tracers arched skyward. One wingman crashed into the sea.

Eisenhuth, canopy open, altimeter spinning, lined up the carrier in his sights.

Anti-aircraft fire tore off his other wingman's aileron.

Eisenhuth drew closer.

Somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 feet, he released his twin bombs and pulled out. He swiveled around and saw a plume of smoke rising from the ship.

"You could tell it was going down," Eisenhuth said.

All three Helldivers in his wing had scored hits.

For helping sink the Zuiho on Oct. 25, 1944, Eisenhuth won the Navy Cross, an award second only to the Medal of Honor in stature.

Now 84 and a retired professor living in Foxdale Village, Eisenhuth spent the war hurtling his SBD Dauntless or Helldiver into nearly vertical plunges from around 12,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean.

"The procedure was, the squadron would come in to the target," Eisenhuth said. "Then you'd come in from the side and peel off, so when you dove and pulled out, you'd all be going in the same direction. So it was just like feeding into a funnel."

Pilots yanked back on their control sticks no lower than 1,000 feet to avoid being caught in bomb explosions. Sometimes, they had to dodge the plane ahead. Over Chi Chi Jima, Eisenhuth almost collided with his commander's Helldiver when it exploded during an attack.

Planes were most vulnerable at the end of dives. Exposed on the deck, they no longer were specks to enemy gunners.

"You juked all over the place so they wouldn't get a bead on you," Eisenhuth said.

All of it would have been hard to imagine for a college student from Orwigsburg who had never flown.

Having no money to continue after two years at Penn State's Schuylkill campus and seeing the war clouds, Eisenhuth picked naval aviation in 1941. His brother had tried it but washed out.

"I always thought I would like to fly," Eisenhuth said.

He earned his wings and a commission as a lieutenant in August 1942, then went through divebombing and carrier training.

Bound for the USS Hornet until it was sunk, Eisenhuth and the rest of Air Group 11 reported to Guadalcanal in 1943. At Henderson Field, the 30 or so fliers lived beside a coconut grove in tents with wooden floors. Typical missions in their Dauntlesses consisted of bombing transports and antiaircraft guns after fighters first strafed the targets.

Malaria and dysentery were rampant.

"They downed more pilots than the Japanese," Eisenhuth said.

One of the few comforts was a bottle of beer with evening meals. Entertainment came from "Washing Machine Charlie," the lone Japanese plane that raided the island every night. Search lights would flash on, and night fighters would scramble.

"Just on signal, all the search lights would go off," Eisenhuth said. "Wait a while and you'd see a bunch of tracers, and Washing Machine Charlie would go down in flames. Of course, we were sitting in our foxholes and cheering."

Months later, Eisenhuth almost went down over Formosa.

He was in Air Group 13, flying a Helldiver off the carrier USS Franklin and attacking ships in Takao Harbor. Flak hit his bomb bay just after he released his load and started his pullout.

"It knocked out almost all my systems," he said. "I didn't have any radio, and my compass was knocked out."

One fuel tank was hit. So much hydraulic fluid and gasoline sprayed into the cockpit, Eisenhuth stuck his head outside to see.

But he still had a small secondary compass and his wingman.

"I picked out an approximate heading, and then the wingman would signal over to me -- right or left -- until we got close to the carrier," he said.

Even then, he wasn't out of the woods. Without hydraulics, he had to manually lower his landing gear and come in hot without flaps. He made it with nearly empty tanks.

Nothing was hotter for Eisenhuth, though, than Leyte Gulf.

The Franklin sent out an attack group against the Japanese fleet. Eisenhuth was "tail-end Charlie," the last to peel off in his wing. Flak bursts and smoke from burning ships filled the sky.

The Zuiho, shooting off a blanket of white phosphorous shells, tried to escape. But Eisenhuth aimed to the outside of its turn and found the mark.

Once out of his dive, Eisenhuth thought he was in the clear -- until his rear gunner began screaming, "They're still shooting." Geysers spouted around them from large warships.

Eisenhuth, pushing the throttle down, sped away.

The Japanese lost a carrier, one of four that Navy fliers sunk during the battle. Eisenhuth lost his flight leader and wingman.

It would be his last combat mission.

While his squadron waited for its next raids, a kamikaze suicide plane struck the Franklin's flight deck.

"It went right through it and rolled up the deck like a carpet," Eisenhuth said.

Flames were all that was left of the squadron ready room, where Eisenhuth had been minutes before the attack. His surviving wingman from Leyte Gulf had part of his leg blown off.

Fifty sailors and aircrew members were killed; another 60 injured.

When the Franklin returned to Bremerton, Wash., for repairs, Air Group 13 stayed. Eisenhuth became a flight instructor for the rest of the war.

Afterward, there were two marriages, three sons and two stepdaughters. He worked mostly at Penn State as a professor in the aerospace engineering department and the Applied Research Laboratory until he retired in 1986.

In a small frame rests his Navy Cross. He was no braver and talented than his friends, he insists. On an October day, training and good fortune carried him through any fear.

"You're so busy, you don't think about it," he said. "It's afterward, you take a deep breath."

Chris Rosenblum can be reached at 231-4620.