Donald D. Pucket, First Lieutenant, USAAF: Medal of Honor Recipient

Donald Dale Pucket (December 15, 1915 – July 9, 1944) was a United States Army Air Forces officer and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.

Biography

Pucket joined the Army from Boulder, Colorado in 1942, and by July 9, 1944, was a first lieutenant piloting bombers with the 98th Bombardment Group. During a raid that day over Ploieşti, Romania, his airplane was badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire. He ordered his crew to abandon the craft, but three men were too frightened to parachute out. Pucket voluntarily stayed behind with the men and tried unsuccessfully to regain control of the plane. The aircraft crashed into a mountainside, killing all on board. Pucket was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor a year later, on June 23, 1945.

Aged 28 at his death, Pucket was buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Born:

December 15, 1915

Longmont, Colorado, US

Died:

July 9, 1944 (aged 28)

near Ploieşti, Romania

Place of burial: Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Saint Louis, Missouri

Allegiance: United States of America

Service / branch: United States Army Air Forces

Years of service: 1942 - 1944

Rank: First Lieutenant

Unit: 343rd Bombardment Squadron, 98th Bombardment Group

Battles / wars: World War II

Awards and Decorations

In addition to the Medal of Honor, Pucket also received the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, the Purple Heart, the American Campaign Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with silver campaign star, the World War II Victory Medal, and the Army Presidential Unit Citation.

Medal of Honor Citation

First Lieutenant Pucket's official Medal of Honor citation reads:

He took part in a highly effective attack against vital oil installation in Ploesti, Rumania, on 9 July 1944. Just after "bombs away," the plane received heavy and direct hits from antiaircraft fire. One crew member was instantly killed and 6 others severely wounded. The airplane was badly damaged, 2 were knocked out, the control cables cut, the oxygen system on fire, and the bomb bay flooded with gas and hydraulic fluid. Regaining control of his crippled plane, 1st Lt. Pucket turned its direction over to the copilot. He calmed the crew, administered first aid, and surveyed the damage. Finding the bomb bay doors jammed, he used the hand crank to open them to allow the gas to escape. He jettisoned all guns and equipment but the plane continued to lose altitude rapidly. Realizing that it would be impossible to reach friendly territory he ordered the crew to abandon ship. Three of the crew, uncontrollable from fright or shock, would not leave. 1st Lt. Pucket urged the others to jump. Ignoring their entreaties to follow, he refused to abandon the 3 hysterical men and was last seen fighting to regain control of the plane. A few moments later the flaming bomber crashed on a mountainside. 1st Lt. Pucket, unhesitatingly and with supreme sacrifice, gave his life in his courageous attempt to save the lives of 3 others.

First Lieutenant Donald Dale Pucket, U.S. Army Air Corps (1915–1944).

 

Vultee XA-41: American Dive Bomber / Low-Level Ground Attack Aircraft

The Vultee XA-41 was originally ordered as a dive bomber. After combat experience led the Army Air Corps to believe dive bombers were too vulnerable to enemy fighters, the contract was amended to change the role to low-level ground attack. Although the XA-41 was a potent weapons system, the design was overtaken by more advanced technology, and never entered production.

Design and Development

The Vultee engineering team decided early in the design process to build the XA-41 (company Model 90) around the 3,000 hp Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major four-row, 28-cylinder radial engine. The Model 90's large tapered wing resembled that of Vultee Model 72 – a two-seat attack aircraft/dive bomber better known as the Vultee Vengeance (A-31/A-35) – including a straight leading edge, forward-swept trailing edge, and pronounced dihedral on the outer wing panels.

Designed to carry both a large internal load and external stores, the XA-41 was large for a single-engine aircraft. The single-place cockpit, set in line with the wing root, was 15 ft (4.6 m) off the ground when the airplane was parked.

As operational priorities shifted during its development phase, the original order for two XA-41 prototypes was cancelled, although the USAAF pressed for the completion of one prototype as an engine testbed for the R-4360 (the same engine used by the Boeing B-50 Superfortress).

Operational History

Flying for the first time on 11 February 1944, the sole XA-41 (S/N 43-35124) proved to have good performance with a maximum speed of 354 mph reached in testing and "superb maneuverability, being able to out-turn a P-51B Mustang". However, with the reduction in military orders due to the approaching end of the war, no production contract was placed, and the aircraft was used as an engine testbed for the USAAF as well as being evaluated by the U.S. Navy in comparison with other contemporary attack aircraft, especially the Douglas AD-1 Skyraider and Martin AM-1 Mauler. After its Navy trials, the XA-41, bearing civil registration NX60373N, was consigned to the Pratt & Whitney division of United Aircraft to continue engine tests. These continued until 1950 before the XA-41 was scrapped.

Type: Ground attack

National origin: United States

Manufacturer: Vultee Aircraft

Status: Experimental

Primary users:

United States Army Air Forces

United States Navy

Number built: 1

First flight: 11 February 1944 (Model 90)

Retired: 1950

Crew: 1

Length: 48 ft 8 in (14.83 m)

Wingspan: 54 ft (16 m)

Height: 13 ft 11 in (4.24 m)

Wing area: 540 sq ft (50 m2)

Empty weight: 13,336 lb (6,049 kg)

Gross weight: 18,690 lb (8,478 kg)

Maximum takeoff weight: 24,188 lb (10,971 kg)

Fuel capacity: 350 US gal (290 imp gal; 1,300 L) normal; 1,140 US gal (950 imp gal; 4,300 L) with long-range tanks in bomb bay

Powerplant: 1 × Pratt & Whitney R-4360-9 Wasp Major 28 cylinder four row radial piston engine, 3,000 hp (2,200 kW)

Propellers: 4-bladed constant-speed airscrew, 13 ft 2 in (4.01 m) diameter

Maximum speed: 363 mph (584 km/h, 315 kn) in high gear supercharger at 15,500 ft (4,700 m)

Maximum speed (mid gear supercharger): 354 mph (308 kn; 570 km/h) at 5,100 ft (1,600 m)

Maximum speed (low gear supercharger): 334 mph (290 kn; 538 km/h) at sea level

Cruise speed: 296 mph (476 km/h, 257 kn) at 12,000 ft (3,700 m) on 1,475 hp (1,100 kW)

Stall speed: 74 mph (119 km/h, 64 kn) with flaps

Combat range: 800 mi (1,300 km, 700 nmi)

Ferry range: 3,000 mi (4,800 km, 2,600 nmi) with long-range tanks

Service ceiling: 29,300 ft (8,900 m) in high gear supercharger

Rate of climb: 2,900 ft/min (15 m/s)

Time to altitude: 10,000 ft (3,000 m) in high gear supercharger:3.9 minutes

Wing loading: 34.4 lb/sq ft (168 kg/m2) (normal loaded weight)

Power/mass: 6.2 lb/hp (3.77 kg/kW)

Take-off to 50 ft (15 m): 500 yd (460 m)

Armament:

Guns: 4x .50 cal M2 Browning machine guns in the wings with 600 rpg

Cannon: 4x 37 mm (1.457 in) cannon mounted in the inner wings (proposed)

Bombs: 6,400 lb (2,900 kg) of ordnance

Rockets: 8–12

Bibliography

McCullough, Anson. "Grind 'Em Out Ground Attack: The Search for the Elusive Fighter Bomber". Wings Vol. 25, No. 4, August 1995.

Thompson, Jonathan. Vultee Aircraft 1932–1947. Santa Ana, California: Narkiewicz/Thompson, 1992.

 

The sole U.S. Army Air Forces Vultee XA-41 (s/n 43-35124) at the Naval Air Test Center Patuxent River, Maryland, on 18 September 1944. 

Convair XA-41 engine testing.

Vultee XA-41 (s/n 43-35124).

Vultee XA-41 (s/n 43-35124).

XA-41 in a slight climb.

XA-41 parked on the ramp.

Vultee XA-41 (s/n 43-35124).

XA-41 prototype.

Cutaway concept for the XA-41.

XA-41.

Vultee XA-41.

Wake Island Airfield

Juan Trippe, president of the world's then-largest airline, Pan American Airways (PAA), wanted to expand globally by offering passenger air service between the United States and China. To cross the Pacific Ocean, his planes would need to island-hop, stopping at various points for refueling and maintenance. He first tried to plot the route on his globe, but it showed only open sea between Midway and Guam. Next, he went to the New York Public Library to study 19th-century clipper ship logs and charts and he "discovered" a little-known coral atoll, Wake Island. To proceed with his plans at Wake and Midway, Trippe would need to be granted access to each island and approval to construct and operate facilities; however, the islands were not under the jurisdiction of any specific U.S. government entity.

Meanwhile, U.S. Navy military planners and the State Department were increasingly alarmed by the Empire of Japan's expansionist attitude and growing belligerence in the Western Pacific. Following World War I, the Council of the League of Nations had granted the South Seas Mandate ("Nanyo") to Japan (which had joined the Allied Powers in the First World War) which included the already Japanese-held Micronesia islands north of the equator that were part of the former colony of German New Guinea of the German Empire; these include the modern nation/states of Palau, The Federated States of Micronesia, The Northern Mariana Islands and The Marshall Islands. In the 1920s and 1930s, Japan restricted access to its mandated territory and began to develop harbors and airfields throughout Micronesia in defiance of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which prohibited both the United States and Japan from expanding military fortifications in the Pacific islands. With Trippe's planned Pan American Airways aviation route passing through Wake and Midway, the U.S. Navy and the State Department saw an opportunity to project American air power across the Pacific under the guise of a commercial aviation enterprise. On October 3, 1934, Trippe wrote to the Secretary of the Navy, requesting a five-year lease on Wake Island with an option for four renewals. Given the potential military value of PAA's base development, on November 13, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William H. Standley ordered a survey of Wake by USS Nitro and on December 29 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6935, which placed Wake Island and also Johnston, Sand Island at Midway and Kingman Reef under the control of the Department of the Navy. Rear Admiral Harry E. Yarnell designated Wake Island as a bird sanctuary to disguise the Navy's military intentions.

USS Nitro arrived at Wake Island on March 8, 1935, and conducted a two-day ground, marine, and aerial survey, providing the Navy with strategic observations and complete photographic coverage of the atoll. Four days later, on March 12, Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson formally granted Pan American Airways permission to construct facilities at Wake Island.

To construct bases in the Pacific, PAA chartered the 6,700-ton freighter SS North Haven, which arrived at Wake Island on May 9, 1935, with construction workers and the necessary materials and equipment to start to build Pan American facilities and to clear the lagoon for a flying boat landing area. The atoll's encircling coral reef prevented the ship from entering and anchoring in the shallow lagoon. The only suitable location for ferrying supplies and workers ashore was at nearby Wilkes Island; however, the chief engineer of the expedition, Charles R. Russell, determined that Wilkes was too low and, at times, flooded and that Peale Island was the best site for the Pan American facilities. To offload the ship, cargo was lightered (barged) from ship to shore, carried across Wilkes, and then transferred to another barge and towed across the lagoon to Peale Island. Someone had earlier loaded railroad track rails onto North Haven by inspiration, so the men built a narrow-gauge railway to make it easier to haul the supplies across Wilkes to the lagoon. The line used a flatbed car pulled by a tractor. On June 12, North Haven departed for Guam, leaving behind various PAA technicians and a construction crew.

Out in the middle of the lagoon, Bill Mullahey, a swimmer and free diver from Columbia University, was tasked with placing dynamite charges to blast hundreds of coral heads from a 1 mile (1,600 m) long, 300 yards (270 m) wide, 6 feet (2 m) deep landing area for the flying boats. In total some 5 short tons (4.5 metric tons) of dynamite were used over three months on the coral heads in the Wake Atoll lagoon.

On August 17, the first aircraft landing at Wake Island occurred when a PAA flying boat landed in the lagoon on a survey flight of the route between Midway and Wake.

The second expedition of North Haven arrived at Wake Island on February 5, 1936, to complete the construction of the PAA facilities. A five-ton diesel locomotive for the Wilkes Island Railroad was offloaded, and the railway track was extended to run from dock to dock. Across the lagoon on Peale, workers assembled the Pan American Hotel, a prefabricated structure with 48 rooms and wide porches and verandas. The hotel consisted of two wings built out from a central lobby, with each room having a bathroom with a hot-water shower. The PAA facilities staff included a group of Chamorro men from Guam who were employed as kitchen helpers, hotel service attendants, and laborers. The village on Peale was nicknamed "PAAville" and was the first "permanent" human settlement on Wake.

By October 1936, Pan American Airways was ready to transport passengers across the Pacific on its small fleet of three Martin M-130 "Flying Clippers". On October 11, the China Clipper landed at Wake on a press flight with ten journalists on board. A week later, on October 18, PAA President Juan Trippe and a group of VIP passengers arrived at Wake on the Philippine Clipper (NC14715).  On October 25, the Hawaii Clipper (NC14714) landed at Wake with the first paying airline passengers ever to cross the Pacific. In 1937, Wake Island became a regular stop for PAA's international trans-Pacific passenger and airmail service, with two scheduled flights per week, one westbound from Midway and one eastbound from Guam. Pan Am also flew Boeing 314 Clipper flying boats, in addition, the Martin M130.

Wake Island is credited with being one of the early successes of hydroponics, which enabled Pan American Airways to grow vegetables for its passengers, as it was costly to airlift in fresh vegetables and the island lacked natural soil. Pan Am remained in operation up to the day of the first Japanese air raid in December 1941, forcing the U.S. into World War II.

The last flight out was Martin M-130, which had just taken off on the flight to Guam when it was called on the radio about Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of World War II, so it returned to Wake. It was fueled up and was going to do a maritime patrol to search for the Japanese, when the Japanese bombing raid attacked and the aircraft took some light damage during the raid, but two of the air crew were wounded. It was stripped of seats and spare weight and filled with 40 people to evacuate. After three take-off attempts, it got in the air. It flew to Midway, then Pearl Harbor, then back to the US. The flight with passengers and 26 Pan-Am employees left in such a hurry that 1 passenger, 1 employee, and 35 Guam staff were left behind. It departed about two hours after the air raid. Except for one other Marine that a PBY flew out on the December 21, these were the last to leave Wake island before the Japanese capture on the 23rd. The US plan was to resupply Wake with a naval force and evacuate civilians, but the island fell to the Japanese while it was still en route.

Military Buildup

On February 14, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8682 to create naval defense areas in the central Pacific territories. The proclamation established the "Wake Island Naval Defensive Sea Area", encompassing the territorial waters between the extreme high-water marks and the three-mile marine boundaries surrounding Wake. "Wake Island Naval Airspace Reservation" was also established to restrict access to the airspace over the naval defense sea area. Only U.S. government ships and aircraft were permitted to enter the naval defense areas at Wake Island unless authorized by the Secretary of the Navy.

In January 1941, the United States Navy began constructing a military base on the atoll. On August 19, the first permanent military garrison, elements of the U.S. Marine Corps' First Marine Defense Battalion, totaling 449 officers and men, were stationed on the island, commanded by Navy Cmdr. Winfield Scott Cunningham. Also on the island were 68 U.S. Naval personnel and about 1,221 civilian workers from the American firm Morrison-Knudsen Corp. The base plan was not complete at the time the war started, and work continued even during the battle of Wake. One shortcoming was that the hangars and bunkers were incomplete, so repairing damaged aircraft during the battle was hard.

In November 1941, VMF-211 embarked 12 of its 24 F4F-3 Wildcats and 13 of its 29 pilots aboard USS Enterprise for movement to Wake Island launching from the carrier and arriving at Wake on December 3.

Pan American Airways (PAA) construction workers "lighter" building materials from SS North Haven to the dock at Wilkes Island, Wake Atoll. 

Railroad on Wilkes Island on Wake. Lagoon end of improvised railroad constructed across Wilkes Islet to move materiel from the landing point on the ocean side of the island to the Wake lagoon for transport to the new seaplane station being built on Peale Islet, visible on the horizon. Photograph made in May 1935 during Pan American Airways base construction operations at Wake Island, supported by the freighter SS North Haven.

Barging through shallow coral studded Peale Channel between Wilkes and Wake. PAA construction workers push barge carrying a small motorboat through shallow water at Wake Island. Photograph made in May 1935 during Pan American Airways base construction operations at Wake Island, supported by the freighter SS North Haven.

Wake Island before railway built. PAA construction workers carry materiel along a path from the landing point on the ocean side of Wilkes Islet to the Wake lagoon for transport to the new seaplane station being built on Peale Islet. Photograph made in May 1935 during Pan American Airways base construction operations at Wake Island, supported by the freighter SS North Haven.

A weather or observation tower on Wake Island. At the base is the infirmary. Photograph made in May 1935 during Pan American Airways base construction operations at Wake Island, supported by the freighter SS North Haven.

Wake Atoll with Pan Am Boeing 314 NC18609, May 25, 1941.  View of Peale Island, Wake, taken 25 May 1941. Seven U.S. Navy Consolidated PBY patrol planes are anchored in the lagoon, and a Pan American Airways Boeing "Clipper" is docked at the pier. The Pan American compound is at the foot of the pier.

Pan American Airways (PAA) hotel and facilities on Peale Island, Wake Atoll. Hotel is on left, anchor from Libelle shipwreck and pergola leading to "clipper" seaplane dock is on right.

Pan Am “China Clipper” berthed at Wake, 1936.

Aerial photo of Wake taken from the northeast in May 1941 from a U.S. Navy PBY Catalina flying boat. Wishbone-shaped Wake Island proper lies at left, as yet unmarked by construction of the airfield there. The upper portion of the photo shows Wilkes Island; at right is Peale Island, joined to Wake by a causeway.

Remains of Pan Am pier for the seaplane refueling station and airport. Pan Am Clippers landed in the lagoon near here and the pier extended out to the aircraft. The date 1936 is found in concrete in part of the structure.

Wake Island, 1941.