Remembering my Hero today
10-26-2014, 08:34 PM
#1
Drifting
Thread Starter
Remembering my Hero today
This isn't about Vette's or road racing but I thought I would share it anyway. My dad was too practical to buy a Vette, but he loved the ones I bought through the years. When I was 17 y.o., He did allow me to talk him into buying a new 1969 Dodge Charger SE with the 383 Super Bee motor as the family vehicle, as, at least it had a back seat.
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Seventy two years ago today my dad, Bob Logsdon, had to go for a bit of a swim in the South Pacific near the Santa Cruz Islands when his ship USS Hornet CV-8 was dead in the water and facing more enemy air attacks. As the NCO supervisor of the signalmen/lookouts he was one of the last off that great ship. During the morning attack on Hornet, seven of his subordinates perished when a Japanese Val dive bomber crashed into the signal bridge. While Hornet was under attack her dive bombers were planting 1000# bombs on the flight deck of the IJN carrier Shokaku and the IJN cruiser Chikuma. Dad had to swim for almost an hour before being picked up by the destroyer USS Anderson.
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Seventy two years ago today my dad, Bob Logsdon, had to go for a bit of a swim in the South Pacific near the Santa Cruz Islands when his ship USS Hornet CV-8 was dead in the water and facing more enemy air attacks. As the NCO supervisor of the signalmen/lookouts he was one of the last off that great ship. During the morning attack on Hornet, seven of his subordinates perished when a Japanese Val dive bomber crashed into the signal bridge. While Hornet was under attack her dive bombers were planting 1000# bombs on the flight deck of the IJN carrier Shokaku and the IJN cruiser Chikuma. Dad had to swim for almost an hour before being picked up by the destroyer USS Anderson.
10-26-2014, 08:39 PM
#2
Drifting
Thread Starter
Hornet CV-8 was of course the ship that launched the Doolittle Raiders, helped defeat the Japanese fleet at Midway, helped save the Marines at Guadalcanal and put the IJN Carrier Shokaku out of the war for almost a year.
10-26-2014, 09:08 PM
#5
10-26-2014, 09:21 PM
#6
Drifting
Thread Starter
Dad was depicted in one of the most famous photo's from WWII, that of Doolittle's B-25 leaving the deck of Hornet on the "Doolittle Raid."
Dad is the shorter man in the foreground. The man directly in front of him was his friend Allen Q Nations of Bisbee AZ. Mr Nations perished at the Battle of Santa Cruz when the Japanese dive bomber crashed into the signal bridge. Seven of my dad's men died when they were showered in burning AVGAS. Dad and others threw them to the deck to extinguish the flames but many did not make it. I think 29 others were injured.
Dad is the shorter man in the foreground. The man directly in front of him was his friend Allen Q Nations of Bisbee AZ. Mr Nations perished at the Battle of Santa Cruz when the Japanese dive bomber crashed into the signal bridge. Seven of my dad's men died when they were showered in burning AVGAS. Dad and others threw them to the deck to extinguish the flames but many did not make it. I think 29 others were injured.
Last edited by bosco022; 10-26-2014 at 09:23 PM.
10-27-2014, 09:15 AM
#8
Burning Brakes
Wow, thanks for sharing Robert!! The stories that your father must have had. That is so cool that your father is in one of the most famous photographs ever taken during WW2. 
