Navy Flier Butch O’Hare

Born on March 13, 1914 in St. Louis, Missouri, Edward H. “Butch” O'Hare was the son of a wealthy businessman and attorney. His parents sent him to Western Military Academy, and in 1933, he went to the U.S. Naval Academy.
After graduating, he received choice duty on the USS New Mexico. Though he was interested in aviation, all new U.S. naval officers had to spend two years on surface ships before specializing in aviation or submarines. Before heading to the Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, Butch learned that his father, E.J. O’Hare, had been shot to death. E.J. had worked for mobster Al Capone but testified against him in the tax evasion trial that sent him to prison. The gangland-style murder garnered headlines across America.
Arriving at Pensacola after the funeral, Butch began flying biplanes. In early 1940, he was assigned to VF-3, the USS Saratoga’s Fighting Squadron. After making his first carrier landing, he said it was “just about the most exciting thing a pilot can do in peacetime.” In early 1941, Butch’s squadron was transferred to the Enterprise based in San Diego, California.
In July 1941, Butch met his future wife, Rita, and proposed to her then and there. That same month, he made his first flight in a Wildcat. He and Rita married six weeks later, sailing to Hawaii for a honeymoon in separate ships, Butch on the Enterprise and Rita in a passenger liner. Months later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the United States entered the war. Butch’s squadron was assigned to the carrier USS Lexington.
On February 1942, the Lexington was tasked with penetrating enemy-held waters north of New Ireland. Her planes were to strike Japanese shipping vessels in the harbor at Rabaul. Unfortunately, a Kawanishi flying boat detected the Lexington 400 miles from Rabaul. Lt. Commander John Thach, skipper of the Lexington's Wildcat fighters, shot down the Japanese “Snooper,” but not before it had radioed the carrier's position. Commander Thach led six Wildcats into the air to intercept nine twin-engine enemy bombers. Each Wildcat destroyed a bomber and they damaged two more. The ship's anti-aircraft downed the rest. In the meantime, nine more Japanese bombers headed toward the Lexington. Six Wildcats, one of them piloted by Butch, roared off the Lexington to stop them. Butch and his wingman spotted the bombers first and dived to try to head them off. The other pilots could not reach most of the enemy planes before they released their bombs. As Butch’s wingman discovered his guns jammed, he had to turn away, leaving Butch alone between the Lexington and the bombers.
Full throttle, Butch soared into the enemy formation. Amid tracers from the fire of the bombers, he aimed at the starboard engine of the last plane in the V-formation and squeezed the trigger. Fire from the Wildcat’s six .50-caliber guns ripped into the Japanese bomber’s wing and the engine jumped out of its mountings, sending the bomber seaward. Butch fired again to tear up another enemy plane. Then he ducked to the other side of the formation and smashed the port engine of the last Japanese plane.
He struck the oncoming bombers until downing five. By now, Thach and the other pilots had joined the fight—lucky for Butch because he was out of ammunition. The Wildcats polished off several more bombers and the Lexington evaded the few bombs that were released. Afterward, Thach figured out that Butch had used only 60 rounds of ammunition for each plane he’d destroyed, most likely saving the Lexington. Butch was promoted to Lt. Commander and awarded the highest decoration of his country, the Congressional Medal of Honor. The citation read—
Without hesitation, alone and unaided, he repeatedly attacked this enemy formation, at close range in the face of intense combined machine gun and cannon fire ... one of the most daring, if not the most daring, single action in the history of combat aviation.
President F.D. Roosevelt personally congratulated Butch for his Medal of Honor. Butch then spent more than a year making appearances to help inspire enlistments and sell war bonds by talking about the mission on which he had risked his life. But he asked to go back to war.
In November 1943, the Americans landed in the Gilbert Islands, and the carriers covered the landings. Equipped with the new F6F Hellcats, the U.S. fighter pilots could protect the warships from Japanese aircraft. But from bases in the Marianas, the Japanese developed tactics to send torpedo-armed Bettys on night missions against the U.S. carriers. Starting In late November, they launched these low-altitude strikes almost nightly.
Butch, now Enterprise Commander of the Air Group, helped to develop the first carrier-based night fighter operations of the U.S. Navy. Bulky primitive radars were carried on the Enterprise, on the larger TBF Avengers but not on the smaller and faster Hellcats. The operation required the ship’s fighter director officer to spot the incoming Bettys at a distance and send the Avengers and Hellcats toward them. The Avengers would then lead the Hellcats into position behind the incoming Bettys, close enough for Hellcats’ pilots to spot the Bettys’ blue exhaust flames. The Hellcats would close in and shoot down the bombers. All the planes on both sides would fly at low levels.
The experimental and risky plan got its first test on November 26, 1943. The “Black Panthers,” as the night fighters were dubbed, included two sections, each with two Hellcats and one Avenger. Butch led his section from his Hellcat. The Hellcats had trouble finding the Avenger; the fighter director officer had difficulty putting any of them on the targets. One Avenger found some of the attacking Japanese bombers and shot two of them down. After that, Butch got in position behind the Avenger, which identified a Betty behind him. A shot from a gunner crouched in the Betty’s forward nose penetrated Butch's cockpit from above on the port side, most likely killing or immediately disabling Butch and plunging his plane into the sea. The aircraft has never been found.
Many American airports are named after politicians or entertainers. In the case of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, its namesake was a 29-year-old flier who, with a wife, a daughter, and a whole life ahead of him, chose to return to war. In the words of the citation on his Navy Cross, Butch O’Hare “gallantly gave his life for his country.”