Vol. 2—No. 28
U. S. Navy Pre-Flight School, Chapel Hill, N. C.
Saturday, March 25, 1944
Pre-flight Cadet On Hornet
When '^Voohttfe Pood It'*
«>
Personnel Changes
Six officers were detached and
three enlisted men received dur
ing the past week.
Lt. Brooks D. Grand is to be at
tached to ComTwelve, San Fran
cisco, CaL, 7th Fleet; Lt. (jg) Al
fred G. Brown to Acorn Assembly
& Training Detachment, Port
Hueneme, Cal.; Lt. (jg) Emil P.
C a m s o n to NavFlight Prep
School, Williams College, Wil-
liamstown, Mass.; Lt. (jg) Fred
erick W. Sington to CAA WTS,
Central Michigan College of Edu
cation at Mt. Pleasant, Michigan;
Ens. George N. Gale to Flight
Prep School at Wesleyan Univer
sity, Middletown, Conn.; and Ens.
Allen D. Fullerton will report to
BuS&A, Washington, D. C.
Lawrence A. Caldwell, HAlc,
Was received from NAS, Corpus
Christi, Texas; Haskell Dicker
son, S2c, from Bunker Hill, Ind.;
and Norman W. Hildreth, PhMlc,
was received from R.S., N.S., New
Orleans, La.
60 Officers Take
Navigation Course
Close to 60 officers were on hand
for the special course in Surface
Navigation which was started this
past Tuesday night.
Conducted for officers by the
Navigation Division of the Aca
demic Department, the course will
Cover piloting and celestial practi
cal work.
Movie Schedule
Sat., Mar. 25—Free movie at Vil
lage Theatre, “Springtime in the
Rockies” (technicolor) with Betty
Grable and John Payne. Feature
starts at 1400, 1538, 1930, and
2109. Complete show one hour, 38
*ttinutes.
Sun., Mar. 26—Free movie at
tillage Theatre, “Thunderbird”
(technicolor) with Gene Tierney
and John Sutton. Feature starts
at 1326 and 1500. Complete show
hour, 34 minutes.
Senior Battalion
To Dance Tonight
In Pine Room
Members of the 43rd Battalion
will hold their Senior Battalion
Dance in the Pine Room of Lenoir
Hall from 2100 to 2400 tonight.
Liberty for the 43rd has been
extended to 0030, with taps com
ing at 0045. Uniform will be ser
vice dress blue, able.
Music for the affair will be pro
vided by the popular swing sec
tion of the Pre-Flight band. Re
freshments will be served.
H. W. Simon Best
In Academics
In 42nd Battalion
Cadet H. W. Simon of L-1, with
an overall average of 3.84, had the
highest individual academic grade
for the 42nd Battalion. He is a
graduate of the duPont High
School, Wilmington, Delaware,
and attended the University of
Delaware.
Second honors were taken by
Cadet M. L. Nash of K-3 with a
3.79. He is a graduate of the
Mangham High School, Louisiana,
and attended Northeast Jr. College
for one year.
Cadet C. G. Thuot of L-3, a
graduate of New Bedford, Mass.
High School, placed third with an
average of 3.63. He also had the
highest average for Navigation in
the Battalion.
Platoons K-1 and K-3 tied for
high honors in Radio with 12.2
words per minute average. K-1
had first honors in Blinker with
7.68 words per minute. Minimum
requirements are 10 words in
radio and six in blinker.
Cadet John Benson, 45-F-3, saw
“Doolittle Dood It” and decided
he’d like to try it himself.
Now a V-5 cadet here, Benson
was a Radioman 2c aboard the
Hornet when Major General Doo
little and his group of gallant
fliers bombed Tokyo.
“But,” he says with a grin, “that
vrasn’t my greatest thrill. It came
a few days later when the Hornet
went down at the battle of Santa
Cruz.”
In the water for half an hour
after his ship went under, Benson
was picked up by a destroyer and
CADET JOHN BENSON, 45-F-3,
who was on the Hornet when it
was sunk, is caught by the pho
tographer looking at the Com
manding Officers Trophy in Navy
HalL
later transferred to a heavy
cruiser.
To refresh your memory the
date of the Hornet sinking was
October 26, 1942, and it was Japa
nese torpedo planes that did the
trick.
“The Hornet,” Benson told the
Cloudbuster, “was part of a Task
Force which included over 10,000.
Of the 3,000 on the Hornet, only
150 lost their lives.”
Benson would have completed
See CADET, page U
From the Front
Doctor Regrets
He Didn’t Like
Physical Training
“I wish to God they had been
twice as tough in conditioning
me . . .”
So writes a naval doctor who
had once “crabbed and griped”
when he was put through a rigor
ous physical-fitness program be
fore being assigned abroad. Why
did a doctor need all that condi
tioning?
But he didn’t gripe about his
physical condition after he got
over, and found himself with a
Marine group which invaded
Guadalcanal. In an article he de
scribes the necessity for a tough
ened, hardened physical constitu
tion for anyone engaged in mod
ern warfare:
“Only men who have been well-
conditioned and were in good phy
sical shape could stand up under
See DOCTOR, page U
American Airmen
Hold 13 to 1
Margin Over Japs
By surprising the enemy with
tremendous power, and pinning
down many of his planes on the
ground, air groups from Navy car
riers are destroying Japanese air
craft at the rate of more than 13
to one in the current Central Paci
fic offensive. Secretary of the Navy
Frank Knox reveal^ recently.
Enemy war plane losses in the
major' actions since our powerful
carrier task forces began opera
tions in the Central Pacific area
last November total more than
600. Forty-five Navy planes have
been lost in combat in these en
gagements.
This stepped-up ratio covers the
pre-invasion and invasion air
blows on the Gilbert and Marshall
See AIRMEN, page 3