Airmen's Admiral

Only wavering shadows marked the ships of Task Force 58, flung wide over the Philippine Sea. From the bridge of the flagship, a small, wiry man strained his eyes into the grey darkness. It was June 19, 1944, the second day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and the planes were still out. This small, wiry man calculated the risks: Jap snoopers were probably near by, there were always submarines.

But mainly he thought of the pilots --tired, wounded perhaps, running low on gas while they searched the shadowy sea for their carriers. Then he made his decision: "Turn on the lights." Instantly, on his orders, the ocean blazed with glowing beacons. Many a pilot who otherwise would have crashed into the dark ocean was saved. And Vice Admiral Marc Andrew Mitscher, who won his own wings in 1916, had won the passionate admiration of Navy pilots everywhere.

Facing Aft. Few men had seen more Pacific fighting than gnomish, taut "Pete" Mitscher. He had commanded the Hornet, from which Jimmy Doolittle launched his B-25s to bomb Tokyo in early 1942. He had fought through the Solomons. For over a year he commanded Task Force 58, spreading destruction from the Ryukyus to New Guinea. In one nine-month period it sank 88 warships, 282 merchant ships, and destroyed 4,425 planes.

Wearing his famous broad-billed cap, perched on a high stool on the flag bridge facing aft ("only a damn fool faces into the wind"), Mitscher directed the mightiest naval unit in history in a soft, flat monotone that belied the compressed fury with which he fought. He was never known to get excited, even when Kamikaze flyers almost literally blew him off the flagships Bunker Hill and Enterprise.

The Shampoo. He. was also a master tactician. He discarded the hit-&-run tactics of earlier carrier raids, and developed the technique of wearing down the enemy's defenses, winning control of the air, and then slugging. Flyers called his method of blasting enemy airfields the "Mitscher shampoo." In their flexibility, his battle plans were a bewilderment to the Japs.

But by July 1945 the fierce, cool, little man had all but burned himself out. He came home for a rest, then was ordered to duty as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air. He had always detested paper work, and by December he was back on sea duty as commander of the Eighth Fleet. Nine months later, he took over the Atlantic Fleet.

This week, at 60, in the Norfolk Naval Hospital, Pete Mitscher died of coronary thrombosis. History made room for him among the U.S. Navy's heroes.

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